Extending electronic mail with conceptual modeling to provide group decision support

This paper reports an attempt to move computer-based techniques for supporting the analysis of group cognitive processes and decision-making from being specialist applications to becoming a routine organizational tool used as readily as electronic mail. The objective is to support the discourse processes of functional groups within an organization by enabling them to investigate, analyze and compare the conceptual frameworks of those playing roles within the group. In particular, the system developed shows when individuals are in conflict through using the same term for different concepts, or in tacit correspondence through using different terms for the same concept. It provides support for group knowledge and decision processes as an integrated extension to electronic mail requiring no particular expertise in use or supervision. The work reported is part of a larger study of knowledge support systems merging artificial intelligence and computer communication techniques.