The Effect of Organizational Form on Information Flow and Decision Quality: Informational Cascades in Group Decision Making

Janis' (1972) groupthink formulation was tested in the laboratory by manipulating group cohesiveness and adequacy of decision procedures in a factorial design. Internal analysis, involving redefined cohesiveness categories, provided mixed support for the groupthink hypothesis on measures of decision quality and group processes presumed to underlie the groupthink decisions. Specifically, it was found that: (1) highest quality decisions were produced by groups of intermediate cohesiveness; (2) high cohesive groups without adequate decision procedures (the groupthink condition) tended to make the poorest decisions; and (3) the presence of groupthink was characterized by a lack of disagreement and a high level of confidence in the group's decisions.

Download Full-text

IJOSpontaneous Group Decision Making in Distributed Collaborative Learning

International Journal of Online Pedagogy and Course Design ◽

10.4018/ijopcd.2013040103 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 3 (2) ◽

pp. 40-58

Author(s):

Geoffrey Z. Liu

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Collaborative Learning ◽

Group Decision Making ◽

Information Science ◽

Group Performance ◽

Group Decision ◽

Decision Quality ◽

Library And Information Science ◽

Poor Group

The paper reports on an exploratory study of student spontaneous group decision making (GDM) in distributed collaborative learning environments. Recordings of group meetings were collected from graduate students working on a database design project (in a library and information science program in California), from which group decision instances were extracted and formally coded for quantitative analysis. A follow-up survey was conducted to gather more information. The study finds that students are generally in favor of an unfacilitated and semi-structured GDM process, with group decisions typically made by consensus. A rigidly structured GDM process tends to be associated with poor group performance. GDM efficiency is an important predictor of the quality of final group products, and too much brainstorming may lead to difficulties. Students relying exclusively on text chatting tend to be unsure if their opinion was given equal attention, and those in underperforming groups are more doubtful about decision quality.

Download Full-text

An Analysis of the Group Dynamics Surrounding Internal Control Assessment in Information Systems Audit and Assurance Domains

Journal of Information Systems ◽

10.2308/jis.2000.14.s-1.97 ◽

2000 ◽

Vol 14 (s-1) ◽

pp. 97-116 ◽

Cited By ~ 13

Author(s):

Ed O'Donnell ◽

Vicky Arnold ◽

Steve G. Sutton

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Information Systems ◽

Group Decision Making ◽

Internal Control ◽

Group Decision ◽

Assessment Process ◽

Decision Quality ◽

Control Processes ◽

Complex Information ◽

Group Members

Both the evolution toward online continuous auditing and new assurance services for information systems reliability have helped fuel changes in the audit/attest process. These changes have already been of concern in dealing with large organizations using complex information systems to process their accounting and business information. As a result, these changes have necessitated a change in focus from traditional accounting control processes to increasingly complex information-systems-based control processes for advanced technology applications. With the resulting increased complexity in the internal control assessment process, the move toward group decision making in the major accountancy firms is expected to accelerate—particularly for the control-assessment process. The research documented in this paper focuses on the impact of group decision making on decision quality within the internal control-assessment process for information systems environments. The results indicate that improved decision quality does result from group decision making and that these improvements arise even if much of the initial assessment work is done individually by group members before the group convenes for face-to-face discussions. The use of preliminary individual assessments does, however, appear to result in a common information-sampling bias. This is the phenomenon whereby group decisions become focused on information known by most or all group members, and information known by only one group member has a higher probability of not being introduced and recognized by the group.

Download Full-text

Group decision making in hidden profile situations: Dissent as a facilitator for decision quality.

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology ◽

10.1037/0022-3514.91.6.1080 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 91 (6) ◽

pp. 1080-1093 ◽

Cited By ~ 197

Author(s):

Stefan Schulz-Hardt ◽

Felix C. Brodbeck ◽

Andreas Mojzisch ◽

Rudolf Kerschreiter ◽

Dieter Frey

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Group Decision Making ◽

Group Decision ◽

Decision Quality ◽

Hidden Profile

Download Full-text

Mental simulation and the individual preference effect

International Journal of Organization Theory and Behavior ◽

10.1108/ijotb-05-2020-0063 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽

Author(s):

Dawn H. Nicholson ◽

Tim Hopthrow ◽

Georgina Randsley de Moura

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Group Decision Making ◽

Group Decision ◽

Experimental Studies ◽

Individual Preference ◽

Mental Simulation ◽

Decision Quality ◽

Content Type ◽

Hidden Profile ◽

The Individual

PurposeThe “Individual Preference Effect” (IPE: Faulmüller et al., 2010; Greitemeyer and Schulz-Hardt, 2003; Greitemeyer et al., 2003), a form of confirmation bias, is an important barrier to achieving improved group decision-making outcomes in hidden profile tasks. Group members remain committed to their individual preferences and are unable to disconfirm their initial suboptimal selection decisions, even when presented with full information enabling them to correct them, and even if the accompanying group processes are perfectly conducted. This paper examines whether a mental simulation can overcome the IPE.Design/methodology/approachTwo experimental studies examine the effect of a mental simulation intervention in attenuating the IPE and improving decision quality in an online individual hidden profile task.FindingsIndividuals undertaking a mental simulation achieved higher decision quality than those in a control condition and experienced a greater reduction in confidence in the suboptimal solution.Research limitations/implicationsResults suggest a role for mental simulation in overcoming the IPE. The test environment is an online individual decision-making task, and broader application to group decision-making is not tested.Practical implicationsSince mental simulation is something we all do, it should easily generalise to an organisational setting to improve decision outcomes.Originality/valueTo the authors' knowledge, no study has examined whether mental simulation can attenuate the IPE.

Download Full-text