The Impact of Group Decision Support Systems on Group Consensus Processes and Outcomes

Abstract

An experiment was conducted to examine how the use of a group decision support system (GDSS) influences the formation of group consensus. In a task requiring group members to jointly prioritize a list of items, 12 groups of eight members each were randomly assigned to one of three experimental conditions involving different levels of technological meeting support: (1) a group decision support system, (2) a manual counterpart to the structure imposed by the GDSS, and (3) no structured support. Measures of group consensus and perceived consensus, decision quality and perceived decision quality, and perceived opportunity to express views were made. The results revealed that the measures of consensus, decision quality and perceived decision quality, and perceived opportunity to express views were all similar across the three levels of technology investigated. Only perceived consensus was found to vary across conditions. The practical implications of these results are discussed.