The Effect of GDSS and Elected Leadership on Small Group Meetings
通过实验研究群体决策支持系统和选举领导对五人小组会议的影响，发现手动结构支持比GDSS更能提高会后共识，且结构支持可能削弱领导影响力。
:This research investigated the effect of a group decision support system (GDSS) and elected leadership on meetings of five-person groups. A controlled experiment that varied the form of decision support (no support, manual structure support equivalent to the GOSS structure, and GOSS support) and elected leadership (yes and no) was used to compare group decisions. Forty-eight undergraduate student groups were randomly assigned to one of the six treatment conditions of this 3x2 factorial design. The groups solved a preference task that required resolution of competing preference structures to arrive at group decisions. The level of premeeting consensus was used as a covariate. The dependent measures included postmeeting consensus, equality of influence, and influence of the leader. The major findings of this research are:• Manual groups displayed a significantly higher postmeeting consensus than GDSS groups. Elected leadership did not increase postmeeting consensus.• There was a significant correlation between equality of influence and premeeting consensus in GDSS groups. Groups that had high premeeting consensus seemed willing to let one member dominate the final solution.• Group support in the form of structure has potential to undermine leadership in small group meetings because leaders in manual and GDSS groups appeared to be less influential than their counterparts in baseline groups.