From elements to structures – identifying theoretical opportunities in the decision support systems discourse

Purpose Decision support systems (DSS) are increasingly integrated into high-stakes decision-making across industries, with the core objective of delivering timely, data-driven insights that inform and enhance strategic and operational choices. Despite decades of development, many DSS initiatives fail to deliver expected value, not due to lack of technology, but due to gaps in problem definition, design alignment, implementation readiness or contextual fit. Therefore, understanding the considerations, challenges and opportunities across the DSS life cycle, the purpose of this paper is to advance both the theoretical foundations and practical applications of DSS. Design/methodology/approach The study uses the theory of innovation diffusion, which underscores the stages of digital innovation of Discovery, Development, Diffusion and Impact. The inquiry employs a two-phase mixed-method synthesis of DSS journal articles published over the past five decades in the Scopus database. In Phase one, latent themes were identified through text mining; in Phase two, qualitative content analysis was used for theoretical discourse. Findings The resulting framework provides a life cycle-integrated perspective characterizing (discovering) Decision Environment, (developing) Decision Support (DS) artifacts, (diffusing) DS applications and (impact on) domains for evaluating DSS contributions. In continuation, to advance the DSS discourse we pose pertinent research questions for the future scholarship. Originality/value This study integrates the theory of innovation diffusion with the DSS life cycle to present a comprehensive framework. Unlike prior reviews, this research identifies latent thematic structures within five decades of DSS scholarship using a mixed-methods synthesis, thereby revealing underexplored theoretical and practical opportunities for advancing cumulative DSS theorization.