First (internationally visible) results from R&D
After the first successful phase of the research cooperation between the Institute of Information Systems – Information Engineering and TD Trusted Decisions GmbH, we are pleased to announce that the first publication of this cooperation has been accepted for publication at a renowned international conference. In mid-December 2017, we will present a first version of an IT prototype in the context of economic decision-making at the “Workshop for Information Technology and Systems”, WITS for short, in Seoul, South Korea, and discuss it with the representatives of the scientific community from Anglo-American “Information Systems” and German-speaking “Wirtschaftsinformatik” who will be present there. This conference occupies a certain special position in the disciplines, since it focuses (in its self-conception as a “workshop”) on “research in progress”, i.e. ongoing, unfinished research projects. In addition, she is represented in relevant conference ratings and rankings and is listed by the Scientific Commission for Information Systems in its orientation list for researchers and given a rating of “B”.
Gut decisions in focus
The gut decision of the decision maker is at the center of the consideration and thus in the functionality of the first version of the prototype. Simplified, decisions are made rationally (head decisions) or intuitively (gut decisions). These two “modes of thinking” are often distinguished as the two cognitive systems, system 1 and system 2. Our current research project aims at the following issue: to identify and visualize gut decisions and to measure the quality of a gut decision. For this purpose, it is necessary to classify the decisions into system 1 and system 2 in the first step. This leads to the realization of which decisions were made from the head or from the gut. If the decision-maker made the decision rationally, the question is whether the decision-maker made a conscious decision not to build. This could be used to measure the quality of defensive decisions in the future.
Presentation of the prototype
If the decision maker has made the decision based on gut feeling, the aim of this research project is to develop questions that ultimately make the quality of this decision measurable and thus derive recommendations for action. Based on this theoretical consideration, a first software prototype was developed in the form of a “throwaway prototype”, i.e. in a version that is not intended as a basis for further development. This experimental prototype is primarily for illustrative purposes and provides a basis for discussion of the underlying logic. This very prototype will be presented and discussed at Soul in December. Against this background, the decision of the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) to recognise the research project and the development of an evolutionary prototype as worthy of funding comes as little surprise. This also lays the financial foundation for a longer-term research project and nothing stands in the way of the revolutionary further development of the prototype.
Prof. Dr. Stefan Koch & Dr. David Rückel | 07.12.2017
