Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781483342146
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Published: 2011-10-26T04:00:00+00:00

Decision Making and Information Technology

Earlier in this chapter we discussed virtual teams and how communication can be affected when employees who are physically separated work together through the use of information technology. As you might expect, collaborating through technology can also affect group decision making. For example, instant messaging allows group members to engage in “invisible whispering,” which can alter group processes and influence decisions (Dennis, Rennecker, & Hansen, 2010).

McGuire, Kiesler, and Siegel (1987) demonstrated that groups interacting face-to-face (FTF) displayed greater bias in their decision making than did groups engaging in text-based computer-mediated communication (CMC). McGuire and colleagues’ results suggest that there may be less social influence exerted on group members when they interact by way of computers. But which form of influence is reduced—informational or normative? The traditional view has been that with the use of information technology, normative influence decreases relative to informational influence (Reid, Ball, Morley, & Evans, 1997). In his review of the literature, Bordia (1997) concluded that there is greater equality of participation in CMC groups and that CMC groups perform better than FTF groups on idea generation tasks. Bordia’s conclusions imply that there is less normative pressure in CMC groups and suggest that McGuire and colleagues’ (1987) results—less-biased decision making in CMC groups—also can be attributed to a reduction in normative influence.

In a direct test of the relative impact of normative influence and informational influence in computer-mediated decision making, Reid and colleagues (1997) examined the discussion patterns of FTF and text-based CMC groups as they tried to reach a decision about how to handle an alleged case of child abuse. In examining the comments made by participants in both conditions, the researchers found that CMC members made fewer comments that demonstrated informational influence and made more comments that demonstrated normative influence. These results counter the prevailing view that CMC reduces normative influence relative to informational influence.

However, the story is probably a little more complicated. The degree to which the different forms of influence affect the decisions of virtual groups is likely impacted by the degree of anonymity of the participants (Valacich, Sarker, Pratt, & Groomer, 2009), and the level of “virtuality” of the medium (Gonzalez-Navarro et al., 2010). Technologies that are more similar to FTF conversations (i.e., teleconferencing) are likely to invoke different forms of influence than those that are less like FTF conversations (i.e., text-based communication). Also, recent research suggests that the influence of these two forms of influence in computer-mediated work environments may depend on the nature of the task (Huang & Li, 2007). Further research is required to sort out these questions.

Group decision making is affected not only by social influence processes but also by the communication processes discussed earlier. Effective decision making may be negatively affected during CMC because social cues necessary for accurately decoding messages are reduced. Baltes, Marcus, Sherman, Bauer, and LaGanke (2002) concluded that nonanonymous CMC groups are less effective in their decision making, particularly when they are under time pressure, and take longer to reach decisions than do FTF groups.

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