Effects of support and task type on group decision outcome: A study using SAMM

The findings are given of a research experiment conducted to investigate the effects of different levels of support and different types of tasks on group decision outcome. The three levels of support provided were no support, structure support, and GDSS support. The two types of tasks employed were an intellectual task having a right answer based on shared formal logical criteria and a preference task where the 'right' answer is based on group consensus. The dependent variables of interest were the post-meeting consensus and the equality of influence experienced by the decision making groups. The experiment was conducted in a decision room environment involving small groups meeting face-to-face. Intellectual task groups produced higher post-meeting consensus and higher equality of influence compared to preference task groups. The findings are due to the differences in task characteristics. The task dimension seems to influence group performance and has implications for the design and usage of GDSS.<>