The effectiveness of virtual facilitation for supporting group decision-making

Abstract

This study examines the effectiveness of virtual facilitation (system-directed multi-modal user support) for supporting structured group decision-making. A multi-modal application for automating the facilitation process for a group decision support system is used to compare decision-making efficiency and decision quality of human-facilitated groups vs. groups using virtual facilitation, in an experiment involving auditors and IT security professionals as participants. The results of the research indicate that groups receiving virtual facilitation were not significantly different from human-facilitated groups in the areas of decision-making efficiency and decision quality.