Groups are a fundamental and essential part of organizational decision making. A group decision support system (GDSS) attempts to use computer and communications technology to help a group make better decisions. In this paper, previous GDSS research is extended to develop a better framework for future GDSS research and design. Six situational factors are identified; group size, member proximity, task type, group environment, and group development stage; so that a given group decision making situation can be accurately described. To standardize the features across different GDSS, six different levels of GDSS features are also identified. The paper then presents a multidimensional framework for conducting future GDSS research, and argues that future GDSS research needs to identify the appropriate GDSS features for the appropriate group decision situation. It is also suggested that researchers take a long-term, holistic approach while analyzing the results of using a GDSS
