Task constraints and user-system interaction process under personnel decision support

An experiment involving a simulated decision support system was carried out to examine the patterns of user-system interaction and decision information utilization under personnel decision support. A computer simulation program of personnel decision support was developed, using actual personnel management data from eight Chinese enterprises, and the process tracing techniques were adopted. Thirty-six subjects (users) participated in this experiment. A 2 × 2 design of task constraints was formulated including two forms of decision information representations (chunking vs. random) and two types of time pressure (3 minutes vs. 1 minute). The results showed that, in interacting with decision support systems, users' weights of decision information attributes were closely correlated with the types of information search patterns. Under high time-pressure and chunking representation condition, more selective search strategies were adopted with a similar pattern of the sequential search as it was under low time-pressure. The user-system interaction revealed a linear additive process of information utilization. Implications of the results are discussed in relation to the design of effective decision support systems for complex decision situations.