Computer Support for Group Versus Individual Decisions

Most decision support systems use computers to support interaction between individuals and a structured model, analytic routine, or a database. However, many problems are unstructured or at best semistructured, and are dealt with by groups of managers within organizations. When dealing with nonroutine problems, the decision-making groups are often geographically and organizationally dispersed. Thus, a decision support system for these groups must include communications, structured to support the decision-making process among members of the group. This paper gives several examples of computerized conferencing systems (CCS's) which have served as group decision support systems (DSS's). In addition, the results of a controlled experiment comparing the process and outcome of group decision-making in a face-to-face versus a CCS mode are discussed. Finally, preliminary results are presented from a second controlled experiment which explored how a CCS may best be structured to serve as a group DSS for a specific type of managerial task.