Decision models for information systems management Kweku-Muata Osei-Bryson & Ojelanki Ngwenyama Published online: 1 May 2008 # Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2008 1 Introduction In the last two decades, information systems (IS) manage- ment decision making has become more complex. Every- day, IS managers in organizations of all over the world manage billions dollars of assets and must make complex decisions that involve information security, outsourcing, disaster recovery, software, hardware and vendor selection, investment strategies, timing the implementation of com- plex software systems (such as enterprise resource planning (ERP)). Inadequate understanding of these decision prob- lems, poor decision analysis, and bad judgment can result in catastrophic outcomes for companies. However, there has been limited research on decision models and frame- works that could assist information technology (IT) managers with these complex decision problems. While there are researchers working in these areas, much of their work appears in journals outside the field of IS. The primary objective of this special issue of Information Systems Frontiers is to focus on providing solutions to significant IS management problems and to provide strategic knowledge for practicing managers. A second objective of this special issue to give impetus to the development of a line of research that would continue to focus attention on providing solutions for the many emerging complex problems that IS managers may face. 2 Information systems decision context Information systems management decision problems such as information security, outsourcing, disaster recovery, software, hardware and vendor selection, investment strat- egies, timing the implementation of complex software systems (such as ERP) are extremely complex and can adversely impact the performance of the firm. The complexity of these decision problems derive from organi- zation and environmental conditions that include (a) multiple stakeholders with different goals and risk prefer- ences (b) multiple objectives and value trade-offs; (c) competitive environments with risk and uncertainty; and (d) inter dependencies, indefinite time horizons and strategic impacts of decision. Under these conditions decision makers often have difficulties identifying decision alternatives and must be creative and careful in their analysis, as the consequences of poor IS decision making found in the literature show (Lyttinen and Robey 1999; Yeo 2002; Ngwenyama et al. 2007).When managers face complex IS problems, decision analysis frameworks and methods can be extremely useful when they assist: (1) interrogating the problem domain; (2) structuring decision problems and generating alternatives; (3) analyzing alter- natives and assessing their impacts; (4) determining the preferences of decision makers; (5) evaluating and com- paring decision alternatives, and, analysis of implications. However, while general theories and frameworks exists for decision analysis, the complexity and diversity of IS problems necessitate research and development of frame- Inf Syst Front (2008) 10:277–279 DOI 10.1007/s10796-008-9082-7 K.-M. Osei-Bryson (*) The Information Systems Research Institute, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA 23284, USA e-mail: KMOsei@vcu.edu O. Ngwenyama Institute for Research on Technology Management, Ryerson University, Toronto, ON, Canada e-mail: Ojelanki@Ryerson.ca