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The Power/Generality Trade-Off in Decision and Problem Modeling: Theoretical Background and Multi-level Modeling as a Resolution

  • Alexander C. BockEmail author
Conference paper
First Online:
Part of the Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing book series (LNBIP, volume 318)

Abstract

A central conflict in decision and problem solving support is known as the ‘Power/Generality’ trade-off. The incorporation of a high level of domain-specific concepts and mechanisms in a decision instrument will increase the instrument’s power but will do so at the cost of the instrument’s generality. This paper has two purposes. First, it brings to attention the power/generality conflict in conceptual decision and problem solving modeling, and it demonstrates the resultant problems in relation to an existing enterprise decision modeling language. Second, the paper proposes the use of a multi-level modeling paradigm as a possible resolution of the conflict, and it proposes concrete re-conceptualizations for an existing modeling language to alleviate the associated problems.

Keywords

Decision making Problem solving Power/generality trade-off Decision modeling Multi-level modeling Enterprise modeling language 
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© Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Research Group Information Systems and Enterprise ModelingUniversity of Duisburg-EssenEssenGermany

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