6.4 Summary
In our cases developing OR models for CDCs, we found that the organizations were
more receptive to non-quantitative approaches than quantitative approaches––
regardless of technical capability (contrary to our expectation). We found CDCs
appropriate for and receptive to value-focused thinking. The objectives hierarchies
for three CDCs provide a menu of core and contingent objectives for other CDCs toincorporate in their own work, and some of both types of objectives ought to be
appropriate for other CBOs. More generally, the nature of these organizations and
their communities affects their acceptance and use of different OR methods and the
content produced by those methods.
The use of objectives hierarchies as data as well as measures used to analyze that
data are a novel way to compare decision models. Also novel is the use of project
decision points as data to map technology acceptance across multi-site community
engagements. This paper supplements current literature on CDCs by bringing a new
approach to articulating values for strategy, and by identifying objectives. It
supplements the empirical literature on soft OR, PSMs and the practice of decision
aiding by testing the degree to which soft and hard methods, as well as valueoriented
methods, work in the little explored context of CBOs.