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An experimental study of the effects of the use of an expert support system and its explanation facilities on group decision making

University of British Columbia

As information technology is increasingly used in organizations to support group work, it is important to understand how group decision making processes are moderated by the provision of computer-based decision support facilities. This research examines the effects of utilizing an Expert Support System (ESS) and its explanation facilities on group decision making. Four persuasion theories form the main theoretical foundations of this research: the elaboration likelihood model, the social judgment theory, the information processing paradigm, and the cognitive response theory. An experimental study was carried out to examine the suitability of using an ESS to support groups in making financial analysis decisions. Three levels of decision support — no ESS support, ESS analyses without explanations support, ESS analyses plus explanations support — were examined. Two groups of subjects — experts and novices — participated in the study. The findings are consistent with the widely-held belief that for an ESS to be useful, both ESS analyses and explanations support are necessary; they both contribute to knowledge transfer from the ESS to the novice decision makers. ESS explanations also increase users' trust in the system. ESS support, however, decreases users' satisfaction with the group process. The expert-novice comparison shows that novices find the ESS to be more useful than experts do. Experts are not only more capable of processing the available information, but they also tend to be more critical and ego-involved in their area of expertise. These characteristics decrease experts' likelihood of being persuaded by the ESS and account for the lower consensus among the experts compared to novices. This research represents one of the first studies to investigate the use of ESS technology in group settings. It integrates quantitative, statistical, and positivist methods with qualitative, case, and interpretive methods to provide a rich understanding and description of the group processes and outcomes. In terms of theoretical contributions, it integrates persuasion theories into research on the use of ESS technology for group decision making. For practitioners and managers, the findings indicate that a high quality ESS, with both its analyses and explanations components, could be used to improve the quality of group judgments.

Thesis/Dissertation

application/pdf

2009-04-20

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/7445

Business Administration - Management Information Systems

University of British Columbia

UBCV

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