Facilitator Effects On The Process Of GSS Appropriation: Opening The Black Box

Abstract

Though technology support of group decision making has long been believed to increase the number of ideas generated and the overall quality of decisions, research on this topic has failed to provide consistent support of these outcomes. Facilitation of the group decision process by specially trained experts is believed to add even further to the benefits the technology brings. The effects of facilitation have been tested in many configurations, yet, here too, researchers have not been able to consistently identify the benefits. The literature shows that prior research in this area has been based on the outcomes of the group decision process focusing on the quantity of ideas generated and group member retrospective perceptions of the process. This suggests that researchers took a black box approach to studying the effects of facilitation in group support systems (GSS) adoption and use subsequently ignoring important aspects of group process and the effects of facilitation in that process. To that end, analysis has been done from the lens of adaptive structuration theory (AST) of 48 homogeneous decision groups in terms of setting, task, and prior relevant participant experience; an excellent environment in which to observe how group members act (make appropriation moves) to adopt and use GSS differently in differing facilitative contexts. This study found that process restrictiveness significantly affects the quantity and types of appropriation moves over the course of a decision task. An unprecedented finding was that different individual facilitators affect the quantity and types of appropriation moves even when holding the treatment restrictiveness constant. I also performed an original extension of the method suggested by AST by disaggregating appropriation moves into the source and target of interactions. This study successfully opens the black box of GSS facilitation and shows analysis of process reveals nuanced differences in factors that affect appropriation that have not been apparent from prior, outcomes-based analyses.