The Impact of Relational Model Bases on Organizational Decision Making: Cases in E-Commerce and Ecological Economics

This dissertation explores reifying the management science concept of organizations as a collection of decisions. Organizational management entails resource allocation activities that can be formulated in terms of elementary relational functions. All elasticity-type formulations, most generic production functions, and various projection models that organizations might require (such as sales forecasts) can all be represented by elementary relational functions. Therefore, information systems in organizations can be representative of relationships between decision requirements, as theorized in relational model bases. A relational model-base structure acts as an integrative device by relating an organization\u27s elementary relational functions to each other, with all that is kept for any model being the current values for coefficients and the now prevailing parametric values for the state variables of the model.Anchoring management information systems around relational model bases is particularly appropriate for organizations that have some reliance on real-time management decision making by providing the answer to two requirements for such organizations: one being the requirement for more accurate and current real-time, operational decision making within the organization; the other being the integration of functions for decision-making purposes within an organization. Relational model bases thus enable more dynamic management and become a central information system type for organizations that have dynamic resource allocation requirements that can employ technical tactics around such relational model bases. The relational model base would reflect revealed needs in an organization as opposed to projected needs, easing an organization\u27s reliance on forecasting and moving it toward real-time decision making. The case for the introduction of these information systems is further strengthened by the fact that relational model base-type structures are already operating in production environments within organizations. The methodology used in this dissertation involved modeling organizational decision requirements in particular organizational cases to determine the behavior of relational model bases within those prototypical organizations and the application of relational model bases to real-time decision making. The first organizational scenario is a recursive agribusiness e-commerce case, with the target application being precision agriculture. The second scenario is a non-recursive ecological economics case, with the target application being preservation of biodiversity through land (habitat) protection