Perceptions of contribution in multi-cultural groups in non-GDSS and GDSS environments

Abstract

This study examined multi-cultural team decision making within a Group Decision Support System (GDSS) environment and within a non-GDSS face-to-face (FtF) environment. One hundred and eleven undergraduate students of varying ethnicities participated in the study. The perceptions of contribution of ethnic minority group members were compared to non-minorities. Results showed that in terms of overall perceptions of contributions involving rating of self, rating of others, and rating by others, the non-GDSS environment achieved higher ratings over the GDSS environment. Although, ethnic minorities' rating of self was significantly lower than the ethnic minorities' rating of others in the non-GDSS environment. In comparison, there were no significant differences between these ratings in the GDSS environment. Furthermore, consistent with previous research on GDSS the average number of ideas generated in the GDSS environment was significantly higher than in the non-GDSS environment.