Synergy of the’ soft’ and ‘Hard’ Sciences for Improving Information Systems

Conclusion To support the development of a suitable ITS for managers (or users) in an orgainsation an Action Research based method has been proposed as a form of ‘soft’ science and a precursor to the ‘hard’ system development phase. On the other hand a method based on a multi-criteria decision making approach (e.g. the AHP) has been employed as a form of ‘hard’ science in the development of the ITS for users. The main issue addressed here is that a suitable combination of ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ sciences has the potential to provide an effective customised IT-based information system for an organisation. The roles and advantages of the ITS presented include: (i) the opportunity to represent key elements associated with the selection of potential staff in a hierarchical format; (ii) the ability to optimise subjective judgments; (iii) the use of an alternative method for obtaining relevant information and explanation as to how such information was arrived at; (iv) the model may be used by one or a group of evaluators working together. This paper makes no claim to the effect that the approach presented will solve all the problems of risk minimisation and quality improvement associated with risk evaluation for the appropriate selection of suitable staff for an organisation. But the approach has the capability to help in obtaining useful and lucid information to support effective decision making.