It investment decision-making: practical usability of a normative model

This study researches the practical usability of a multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) method for making IT-investment decisions. The practical usability of the ROAHP model is studied by presenting ROAHP to CIO’s and using a survey to collect their opinion on prerequisites for practical usability, strengths and weaknesses, and current routines of their organization that could benefit from ROAHP. To understand these opinions they are put in organizational context by profiling their organization’s strategic decision making process based on dominant paradigms in strategic decision making research. The study concludes that CIO’s recognize the potential of ROAHP but that it lacks usability. Furthermore, this study recommends future research to focus on the practical usability rather than validity of the method.