Effects of information importance and distribution on information exchange in team decision making

Teams in organizations are strategically built with members from domains and experiences so that a wider range of information and options can be pooled. This strategic team structure is based on the assumption that when team members share the information they have, the team as a whole can access a larger pool of information than any one member acting alone, potentially enabling them to make better decisions. However, studies have shown that teams, unlike individuals, sometimes do not effectively share and use the unique information available to them, leading to poorer decisions. Research on information sharing in team decision making has widely focused on the exchange of shared or unshared information in the hidden profile paradigm, neglecting the role of information importance. Informational influence theory holds that the importance of information may affect how information is processed for making decisions in teams. This study investigates information exchange processes to understand how teams can effectively exchange and use information available to them to make better decisions. The specific research question concerns the extent to which importance and distribution of information is associated with its exchange during discussion in distributed teams. Data are collected in a laboratory study involving subjects interacting with a computer-mediated decision support system. The results show that the importance of information, the distribution and the interaction of importance and distribution have significant main effects on information exchange. Teams tend to exchange a higher proportion of the more important information compared to the less important information. A third dimension is introduced to measure information distribution -- partially shared information -- and is found to have a strong main effect on information exchange. It is also found that the extent to which team members exchange more important information during discussion strongly correlates with the tendency to improve team performance. It is also found that task complexity is negatively correlated with information exchange performance. Teams tend to exchange a smaller proportion of information when working on complex tasks, compared to when working on simple tasks. This dissertation makes contributions in three areas. Firstly, a theoretical model is developed that allows for the investigation of the joint relationship of the importance of information and its distribution in team decision-making. Secondly, this work introduces a new approach to investigate information sharing, exchange and use in decision-making teams. Others can apply this approach fruitfully in investigating similar phenomena outside of the current domain. Finally, this work improves the understanding of information sharing and exchange processes in relation to the distribution of information and its importance

The effectiveness of virtual facilitation in supporting GDSS appropriation and structured group decision making

Since their introduction a quarter of a century ago, group decision support systems (GDSS) have evolved from applications designed primarily to support decision making for groups in face-to-face settings, to their growing use for “web conferencing,” online collaboration, and distributed group decision-making. Indeed, it is only recently that such groupware applications for conducting face-to-face, as well as “virtual meetings” among dispersed workgroups have achieved mainstream status, as evidenced by Microsoft’s ubiquitous advertising campaign promoting its “Live Meeting” electronic meeting systems (EMS) software. As these applications become more widely adopted, issues relating to their effective utilization are becoming increasingly relevant. This research addresses an area of growing interest in the study of group decision support systems, and one which holds promise for improving the effective utilization of advanced information technologies in general: the feasibility of using virtual facilitation (system-directed multi-modal user support) for supporting the GDSS appropriation process and for improving structured group decision-making efficiency and effectiveness. A multi-modal application for automating the GDSS facilitation process is used to compare conventional GDSS-supported groups with groups using virtual facilitation, as well as groups interacting without computerized decision-making support. A hidden-profile task designed to compare GDSS appropriation levels, user satisfaction, and decision-making efficiency and effectiveness is utilized in an experiment employing auditors, accountants, and IT security professionals as participants. The results of the experiment are analyzed and possible directions for future research efforts are discussed

IFPOC Symposium:Discovering antecedents and consequences of complex change recipients' reactions to organizational change.

IFPOC symposium: Discovering antecedents and consequences of complex change recipients' reactions to organizational change Chairs: Maria Vakola (Athens University of Economics and Business) & Karen Van Dam (Open University) Discussant: Mel Fugate (American University, Washington, D.C) State of the art Organisations are required to continuously change and develop but there is a high failure rate associated with change implementation success. In the past two decades, change researchers have started to investigate change recipients' reactions to change recognizing the crucial role of these reactions for successful change. This symposium aims at identifying and discussing the complex processes that underlie the relationships among antecedents, reactions and outcomes associated with organizational change. New perspective / contributions This symposium consists of five studies that extend our knowledge in the field by (i) providing an analysis of change recipients' reactions going beyond the dichotomous approaches (acceptance or resistance) (ii) revealing understudied antecedents-reactions and reactions-consequences patterns and relationships (iii) shedding light on the role of contextual factors i.e team climate and individual factors i.e emotion regulation on the adaptation to change. This symposium is based on a combination of both quantitative (i.e diary, survey) and qualitative (i.e interviews) research methodology. Research / practical implications This symposium aims to increase our understanding of the complex processes associated with change recipients' reactions to change. Discovering how these reactions are created and what are their results may reveal important contingencies that can explain how positive organizational outcomes during times of change can be stimulated which is beneficial for both researchers and practitioners