BIS 99 3rd international conference on business information systems, poznan, poland 14 16 april 1999

e-mail: jaronson@blaze.cba.uga.edu School of Business The University of Texas of the Permian Basin Odessa, USA e-mail: boyd_m@utpb.edu Department of Information Technology University of

BIS'99

Springer

London Berlin

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Paris

Santa Clara Singapore Tokyo

Witold Abramowicz and Maria E Orlowska

Department of Computer Science, The Poznan University of Econo mics, Poland Maria E Orlowska, Osc, Professor

Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, The University of Queensland, Australia

ISBN 978-1-85233·167·2 Springer·Verlag London Berlin Heidelberg

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

BIS'99: 3rd International Conference on Business

Information Systems, Potnan, Poland, 14·16 April 1999

l.lnformation storage and retrieval systems · Business·

CongreMes

I.Abramowia, Witold II.Orlowska, M E (Maria E.)

lIl.lnternational Conference on Business Information

Systems (3rd: 1999: Poznan)

025'.06658

ISBN·i3: 978-1-85233·167·2 e ISBN·13: 978·1-4471-C87S-7

DOl: 10.1007/ 978·1-447W875·7

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

A catalog record for this book is available from the LibraryofCongress

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review as permined under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 this publication may only be reproduced stored or transmined, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued

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operator, i s the largest flower in Poland' s carparate garden How large exactly? Well, our capito l base is over 30% bigger than the sum of all the other compan ies on the Polish Stock Exchange Combined Our recent privotisotion attracted investors from Poland and overseas and was healthily oversubscribed And our results reflect our ambitions:

a customer bose that 's growing at a rate of 14% a year;

on investment programme that has already yielded lightning developments in the areas of ISDN, Internet and data

transmissions services Of course, there's also the small matter of profits A large matter,

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GOR,-Preface

Welcome to BIS'99!

Business Information Systems 99 is an international conference being held for the third time BIS'99 aims to discuss the development, implementation, application and improvement of computer systems for business processes It is addressed to the scientific community, people involved in the development of business computer applications, and to consultants helping to properly implement computer technology and applications in industry

Over 50 selected papers will be presented at BIS'99 during the scientific and practical sessions The papers deal with a variety of topics related to computer systems in management, from the point of view of their application (e.g., electronic commerce), their business or industrial users (e.g., business process re-engineering), and technology (e.g., data warehousing) The submitted papers underwent a rigorous reviewing process, and the resulting program should provide an outstanding representation of international research in this area

We believe that BIS'99 will provoke some interesting international discussion amongst participants, particularly as this meeting includes a number of invited lectures by international experts in the area The BIS'99 international Program Committee was composed of 53 scientists from diverse locations - from the USA

to Australia, from countries with a stable economy through to those undergoing economic transformation This aspect further helps to enrich the conference program

BIS'99 will be held on the premises of the Poznan International Fair during INFOSYSTEM - the most important trade fair of all the electronics, telecommunications and computer engineering events organized in Poland This

is another excellent opportunity for BIS'99 participants to observe the current market on offer of computer hardware and software

We wish to express our gratitude to all those individuals and institutions who made this conference possible: to the authors of papers for their contributions, to the Program Committee members and the additional referees for carefully reviewing the submissions, to the keynote and invited speakers for kindly

accepting our invitation, and to all the members of the Organizing Committee, with special thanks to Danuta Nowacka, Mahmoud Fagir, Pawel Jan Kalczynski, Krzysztof Wecel and Przemyslaw Grzeszczak from The Poznan University of Economics, Poland and who has proved to be the "heart and soul" in the local organization of BIS'99

Additional thanks are due to Kathleen Williamson of The University of Queensland who has provided valuable help in the preparation of the proceedings, and Rebecca Moore at Springer Verlag for her help and advice

Finally, but very importantly, our gratitude goes to the Sponsors for their involvement and valuable support, specially for Telekomunikacja Polska S.A

We thank everyone involved for the work they have put in to bring together such

an interesting program, and we look forward to sharing this with all participants

We look forward to welcoming you to Poznan in April

Wit old Abramowicz and Maria E Orlowska

Program Committee Co-Chairs, BIS'99

Table of Contents

Inauguration Session

Building a Case for Consonance

Gary Klein, James J Jiang, Michael Boyd 3

The Impact of Time Pressure on Idea Generation

Robert M Myers, Jay E Aronson, Robert B Wharton 13

A Discussion on Process Losses in GSS: Suggested Ground Rules for

the Electronic Environment

Wm Benjamin Martz, Jr 24

Suggestions for Improving the Diffusion of GroupSystems in Organizations

Morgan M Shepherd 35

Facilitating and Coordinating Distributed Joint Applications Development

James Suleiman, Roberto Evaristo, Gigi G Ke/ly 45

Knowledge Management

Information Systems in Customer-Oriented, Dynamic Environments: The Marketplace as a Metaphor

Peter C Lockemann' 55

Knowledge Management: Life Cycle and Implementation Techniques

August- Wilhelm Scheer, Ursula Markus 76

Utilising Knowledge Resources: An Activity Perspective of Knowledge

To the Stars through Dimensions and Facts

jaroslav Pokorny 135

Generating Sample Data for Mining and Warehousing

josef Schiefer, A Min Tjoa 148

Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery in Business: Past, Present,

and Future

Zdzislaw S Hippe 158

From Economical Theory to Management Systems

On the Difficulties of Cost/Benefit Analysis: What Management

is Buying when Buying Information Technology Systems

Kenneth Wong, Wita Wojtkowski 173

User Preferences in Evaluating Usability of Software Product: A Multicriteria Approach

Marcin Sikorski 182

Business Process Re-engineering

Re-engineering: Problems with Theory and Practical Application

Database in SupPort of BIS

Towards Exploitation of the Data Universe - Database Technology for

Comprehensive Query Services

Klaus R Dittrich, Ruxandra Domenig 231

Prototype Validation of the Rectangular Attribute Cardinality Map for Query Optimization in Database Systems

Murali Thiyagarajah, B john Oommen 250

Workflow Management Issues

Time Management in Workflow Systems

johann Eder, Euthimios Panagos, Heinz Pozewaunig, Michael Rabinovich 265

On Capturing Process Requirements of Workflow Based Business

Information Systems

Wasim Sadiq, Maria E Orlowska 281

Author Index 295

e-mail: jaronson@blaze.cba.uga.edu School of Business

The University of Texas of the Permian Basin Odessa, USA

e-mail: boyd_m@utpb.edu Department of Information Technology University of Zurich

Zurich, Germany e-mail: dittrich@ifi.unizh.ch Department of Information Technology University of Zurich

Zurich, Germany e-mail: domenig@ifi.unizh.ch AT&T Labs - Research Florham Park, USA e-mail: hans@research.att.com College of Business Information Technology and Electronic Commerce

Department University of Denver Denver, USA

e-mail: evaristo@du.edu Department of Computer Chemistry University of Technology Rzeszow, Poland e-mail: zshippe@prz.rzeszow.pl Department of Computer Information Systems College of Administration and Business Louisiana Tech University

Ruston, USA e-mail: jiang@cab.latech.edu School of Business Administration The College of William & Mary Williamsburg, USA

e-mail: ggkell@business.wm.edu Warsaw University

Faculty of Managemaent Warsaw, Poland e-mail: jkis@wspiz.edu.pl College of Business and Administration The University of Colorado,

Colorado Springs, USA e-mail: gklein@mail.uccs.edu School of Information Management & Systems Monash University

Caulfield East, Victoria, Australia e-mail: henry.linger@sims.monash.edu.au

Saarbruecken, Gennany e-mail: markus@iwi.uni-sb.de Accounting & MIS

College of Business California State University, Chico e-mail: bmartz@csuchico.edu Institut fur Infonnatik

TU Bergakademie Freiberg Freiberg, Gennany e-mail: chris@infonnatik.tu-freiberg.de Rinker School of Business

Palm Beach Atlantic College West Palm Beach, USA e-mail: myersr@pbac.edu School of Computer Science Carleton University Ottawa, Canada e-mail: oornmen@scs.carleton.ca Distributed Systems Technology Centre Department of Computer Science & Electrical Engineering The University of Queensland

Australia email: {wasim.maria}@dstc.edu.au AT&T Labs - Research

Florham Park, USA e-mail: thimios@research.att.com Department of Software Engineering Faculty of Mathematics and Physics Prague, Czech Republic

e-mail: pokomy@ksi.ms.mff.cuni.cz Department of Infonnatics Systems University of Klagenfurt, Austria e-mail: hepo@ifi.uni-klu.ac.at AT&T Labs - Research Florham Park, USA e-mail: misha@research.att.com Prague University of Economics Praha, Czech Republic e-mail: REPA@VSE.CZ Distributed Systems Technology Centre Department of Computer Science & Electrical Engineering The University of Queensland

Australia email: {wasim.maria}@dstc.edu.au

e-mail: js@ifs.tuwien.ac.at Information Systems University of Colorado Colorado Springs, USA

e-mail: mailto:mshepher@mail.uccs.edu Technical University of Gdansk, Faculty of Management and Economics Gdansk, Poland

e-mail: msik@zie.pg.gda.pl University of Colorado Colorado Splings College of Business Department of Information Systems Colorado Springs, USA

e-mail: jsuleima@mail.uccs.edu School of Computer Science Carleton University Ottawa, Canada e-mail: murali@scs.carleton.ca Institute of Software Technology (EI88) Vienna University of Technology Vienna, Austria

e-mail: tjoa@ifs.tuwien.ac.at Wroclaw University of Economics Faculty of Management and Computer Science Wroclaw, Poland

e-mail: unold@han.ae.wroc.pl Arizona State University Department of Computer Science and Engineering Tempe, USA

e-mail: joseph.urban@asu.edu Rinker School of Business Palm Beach Atlantic College West Palm Beach, USA Institute of Information Management and Post-Graduate Program in Business Engineeling University of St Gallen

St Gallen, Switzerland e-mail: Robert.Winter@unisg.ch Computer Information Systems and Production Management Boise, USA

e-mail: riswojt2@cobfac.idbsu.edu Technical Support

Cougar Mountain Software Potomac, USA

e-mail: kwongc@aol.com

Inauguration Session

Building a Case for Consonance

Gary Klein College of Business and Administration The University of Colorado, Colorado Springs

Colorado Springs, USA e-mail: gklein@mail.uccs.edu James J Jiang Department of Computer Information Systems College of Administration and Business Louisiana Tech University Ruston, USA e-mail: jiang@cab.latech.edu Michael Boyd School of Business The University of Texas of the Permian Basin

Odessa, USA e-mail: boyd_m@utpb.edu

Abstract

A number of theories and practices lean toward the importance of achieving agreement among various stakeholders and practices in organizations Consonance is such a concept applied to systems de-velopment and allows likelihood of success to be measured at the start of a project rather than the conclusion This paper reviews the-ory and preliminary studies that support the concept of consonance

1 Introduction

Attaining system success has been the goal for information system developers since the invention of the computer Difficulties arise from various sources in-cluding conflicting thoughts of various stakeholders, poor evaluative measures, lack of essential skills on the project, and insufficient support from management and users Measures to determine if a system was implemented successfully exist, but they are aligned at the end of the development process and do not serve to as-sure success from the start of the project [7] Consonance is a concept that incorpo-rates management theory and system measures to move the determination of sys-tem success to a point earlier in the life of the system [22] Such a technique can serve as a tool in achieving success and may function as a predictor of likely suc-cess or failure Consonance can be incorporated into any development process with effective measures and communication tools already in existence

W Abramowicz et al (eds.), BIS ’99

© Springer-Verlag London Limited 1999

Consonance is based on a number of management theories and practices that are designed to promote success Essentially, consonance is a theory backed process to arrive at agreement on target objectives for information systems The process of reaching the agreement and monitoring progress during development is the tool for achieving success and can be composed of techniques preferred by the organiza-tion for achieving agreement among constituents The term consonance was se-lected because of its Webster's defmition "harmony or agreement among compo-nents"

2 Background of Measures

One starting point in the IS field is to understand perspectives on job performance Early studies of user satisfaction focused on a particular software product and the importance of user participation in the process Doll and Torkzadeh [8], using fac-tor analysis, developed a 12-item instrument that measured five components of user satisfaction: content, accuracy, format, ease of use and timeliness More re-cently, Kettinger and Lee [21], introduced a gap measurement instrument looking

at service quality as an important issue in the determination of IS effectiveness at the organizational level Productivity and quality measures exist to reflect the view

of developers and managers [32]

Each of these measures focuses on one group's perspective of system evaluation But it is widely perceived that users are more concerned with system use charac-teristics and relationships with IS personnel whereas the IS personnel are interested

in technical aspects and system quality [9, 12] It is logical that these different groups of people may assign different weights to the same criterion due to their perspective on what is, important [15, 23] Thus, evaluation must consider both user and IS group perspectives to be complete [1] In total, the various potential sources for feedback include all stakeholders in an information system development and implementation [6] The number of measures and studies demonstrates the multi-attribute nature ofIS success measurement [7]

Just because we have a plethora of measures, does not mean we have the ability

to apply them in a productive fashion But the popularity of project orientations for system design allows the insertion of techniques at various stages of development, particularly early in the process Each party entering into a system development project starts with a set of expectations and knowledge Often these expectations will differ from one party to the next IS developers will want to work on current technology and efficient software Users will want a dependable system that func-tions as promised and fits into their existing workflow procedures with little or no disruption Owners will want a cost effective system that will improve the opera-tions of the organization or serve to reach a broader market The gaps between the stakeholders on a set of criteria represent a lack of consonance

The total gap may be over many dimensions Each party has a set of needs to be satisfied and initially approach the project with a bias along the lines of those needs These are gaps in expectations In addition, a perception gap could be pres-

ent [22] A perception gap exists when one party has a false impression of the sires of another party This perception gap can lead the service providers to falsely target the desires of the clients Both of these gaps need to be closed in order to achieve consonance The agreed upon set of objectives and measures represents

de-a contrde-act entering into system development de-activities

3 Theory Background

The primary theoretical basis for consonance is congruence theory Congruency contains five concepts as described by Nightingale and Toulouse [28] These concepts are organizational structure organizational values, interpersonal and intergroup values, and reactions and adjustments of individual organization members These four concepts are all moderated by the organization's environ-ment along with the constraints and restrictions that effect that environment These concepts create an atmosphere among the members and groups of an or-ganization that are congruent - working toward the overall goals of the organi-zation - even when forced through rules and regulations that are not necessarily congruent with each members value system Therefore, according to Nightingale and Toulouse, congruence is a natural state of affairs How, then, does an organi-zation become incongruent? The obvious answers are change in leadership, envi-ronmental changes, shift in cultural values, technology, change in economic con-ditions, and mergers and acquisitions The most relevant of these causes for organizations to become incongruent as pertains to the present time and this study are the influence of technology and a shift in cultural values over the past decade

Milliman, Von Glinow, and Nathan [27] approach the problem of "fit" among organizational subcomponents affect the congruence of an organizations human resource population Their main focus is on human resource management (HRM), which also ties into the consonance concept They address several issues in the application of congruence theory to HRM First, the concept of fit needs to be clarified in relation to HRM, it is the degree to which the needs, demands, goals, objectives, and structure of one component meld with other organizational compo-nents This in tum increases overall effectiveness of the organization Second, what

is flexibility and what is the relationship to fit? Milliman et al define flexibility as the capacity of the HRM to adapt effectively and timely to the environmental changes and internal organization changes Four main categories that would require flexibility are 1) a dynamic environment (changing technology), 2) a variety of different environmental conditions and situations (value changes and technology), 3) Rapidly changing organizational goals and strategies, 4) two or more divergent organizational goals The final issue is what conditions will fit and/or flexibility lead to organizational effectiveness Literature looks at the key to strategic man-agement as being able to cope with change (flexibility) and continual adaptation to achieve fit between an organization's internal and external environments All of these are issues in which consonance is an essential part

Vancouver and Schmitt [30] explore organizational goal congruence proach it by using a constituency concept They look at relationships between su-pervisor and subordinate and between worker and constituents They have opera-tionalized these comparisons by using job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and intention to quit By using this person-organization fit concept, it allows one to measure congruence using the idea that organizational goals reflect the values and commitments of the founders and leaders of organizations and the people who make up the organization It can be compared to group cohesiveness - goal match between member and constituency This match is necessary for effectiveness and efficiency and relates to consonance between end user and IS personnel

Theyap-Edwards [10] gives a very in-depth explanation of the problems that have arisen

in the organizational behavior research of congruence The methods used to tionalize and measure the constructs have been flawed in the origins and caused many problems with the relevancy of the results Edwards has offered an alterna-tive that will do away with some of the problems All data should be viewed in three dimension using pairs to process the data The outcomes should be viewed as three dimensional and constraints should not be imposed but proven as hypothesis that are confirmed

opera-Two more research papers that deal with congruence also bring out interesting points that can be applied to this research Brown, Cron, and Slocum [5] deal with trait competitiveness in competition They test the compatibility of individual traits for competitiveness with the competitive organizational traits and realize there is

a delicate balance that must be maintained to prevent counter productivity If the competition and is in proper balance it produces goal setting and higher perform-ance Bozarth and Berry [4] measure congruence in a manufacturing/marketing environment The interesting points about strategic fit also give credence to the concept of consonan<:e in this research paper Bourgeois [3] produced research on the importance of means over goals which also fits into the ideals being expounded upon in these first two documents He is able to point out that the pursuance of means yields higher productivity than the simple establishment of goals Setting congruent goals is an important step, however, the establishment of means to pur-sue those goals should also maintain a high priority in our endeavor to find congru-ence or consonance

Following the previous lines of conviction on congruence, incongruence, and goal setting the issue of agency theory can also be established as an anchor to the consonance concept Agency theory deals with the relationship of the agent to the principal The agent should always act in the interest of the principal Setting the IS professional as the agent and the end user as the principal, the agent should be working in the best interests of the principal The goals of the principal and the goals of the agent are based on their own self interests and rarely are they perfectly aligned This misalignment is caused by goal incongruence and information asym-metries [14] These problems result in lower effectiveness and efficiency Conso-nance will be a procedure that can help detect these problems

Eisenhardt [11] did an in depth study on agency theory and how it could be used

in the organizational theory literature She considers and answers four questions

that deal with what is agency theory, how does it contribute to organizational ory, is it empirically valid, and in what areas does it relate to organizational theory She reiterates that agency theory deals with goal incongruence and the difficulty of monitoring the agent She also pointed out the two schools of thought about agency theory The positivists believing more in contractual control and the principal-agent side looking at a lower level that can be tracked and mathematically tested Eisenhardt points out the benefits and constraints of each school and how each can

the-be applied to the organization and the results are shown to the-be costly if the goals are incongruent Gurbaxani and Whang [13] approach agency theory specifically as related to information technology and reconfirm the probability of goal incongruity and the resulting costs Lastly in tying agency theory to the concept of consonance, Keil [19] wrote about escalation of information systems that were in trouble eco-nomically He used some of the same bases previously stated in this review Lack

of goal congruency - or consonance -leads to information asymmetry The metry most often narrows down to the resistance of management (agent) to report unforeseen problems to the end user (principal) that ultimately drives all costs of the project up Many times one of these costs is user dissatisfaction, which ulti-mately may translate to project failure

asym-4 Example Cases

The evidence for the presence of a number of gaps comes from a variety of studies reported in the literature Project selection criteria vary by strategic orientation of the system so a careful match of the system and organizational missions are critical

to achieving consonance [18] Users vary their own criteria depending on a ogy of systems, making user involvement in the setting of goals imperative in un-derstanding their desires [16] Differences exist in the importance of IS personnel performance expectations within the industry [22] Perceptions of failures also dif-fer by stakeholder, indicating a lack of consonance in prior expectations of the system [17] Other potential problems of a consonance lack exist in the area of system intent to organizational intent, skill requirements of the organization to hiring and training practices, and a conflict between resources and objectives The list includes those items discussed in the earlier section on numerous stakeholders and components and numerous others described in textbooks and research throughout the years

typol-As part of the work to examine the presence of consonance, the authors have collected data on consonance at the start of a project One study collected data from a survey a data processing professionals and their associated users The ques-tionnaire was a multi-item scale pre- and post- tested for ambiguity and reliability The sample was taken from a list of list of 140 businesses identified by a local Economic Development Center sponsored by a major mid-western university Users were approached directly and asked to complete the questionnaire and identify an associated IS staff member Users rated IS personnel performance, perceived importance of the six measures listed in table I, and their perception of

the importance placed on each measure by the IS personnel IS personnel rated

their self perceived job performance, the importance they attach to each of the

ilems, and their perception of the importance placed on each measure by the users The participants held a wide variety of managerial positions in industry (the user group) and had a breadth of experiences in information system development (the

IS personnel group) The collected data allow us to examine existing gaps in the

IS profession

Table 1 Comparison of User and IS Personnel Views

IS Personnel's

User's Impor~ Importance

ranee Ratings Ratings

Performance Importance vs vs User

Users vs Users vs Estimate of IS Personnel

IS personnel IS personnel User Views Views

D = significant differences at 05 level or below

Table I contains a sununary for each criterion and where there are significant differences between the users' and IS personnel's perspectives If there are signifi-cant differences we have problems with consonance where users and IS personnel are on different "wavelengths" This could lead to persormel and user dissatisfac-

anic\e, London and Smither [23] discuss Multisource feedback which provides the ratee with more infonnation to interpret and integrate than that provided by super-visors alone Ashford [2] points out that employees need to develop proficiency in observing and evaluating their behavior in a manner which is consistent with how others perceive and evaluate it As Yanunarino and Atwater [31] found, accurate self assessments help employees correct errors and tailor their perfonnance

We fmd in column 1, Table 1 that the IS personnel rate satisfaction significantly higher on each measure for the same overall jobs than the IS users do This could

be a cause of problems, as McCall and Lombardo [25] point out that inflated self evaluation was associated with career derailment McCauley and Lombardo [26] found that managers whose self evaluations were consistent with co-workers and customers assessments of them were more likely to be promoted On the other hand, in column 2, IS personnel rate all 6 performance criteria as more important than the IS users do This could be a good feature as it shows IS personnel to be demanding on performance criteria for their own work

Another feature of this study is the comparison of what IS users think IS sonnel rate as important and conversely what IS personnel perceive that users see

per-as important In these comparisons we see more consonance (Table 1, cols 3 and 4) than in the ratings of performance satisfaction and importance of criteria On the individual criteria the IS personnel were wrong in their ratings of user views on only two measures (quality and teamwork and leadership) The user perception of

IS personnel views differed only on project management tasks and dependability These shortcomings show a need for more communication and more attention to the separate measures to achieve increased overall satisfaction

In a case study involving the information services within a university, differences were found to exist in expectations of the system performance The same six meas-ures described were used in a study involving the IS department of a regional uni-versity and two groups of users, the staff and the students/faculty The users were divided into two groups because of major differences in the applications supported

by the IS department Again, the importance of each of the items was solicited

In addition, an overall satisfaction measure from the user groups of the ance of the department and the end-user satisfaction scale of Doll and Torkzadeh was applied

Figure 1 shows a graph of the differences in importance of the criteria The IS partment shows a wide gap from both groups of users for three of the six metrics, smaller differences for two, and little or no difference to the last one All differences test significant at the 05 level using t-tests except for the difference between fac-ulty/student and staff users on general tasks and teamwork, and on all three groups for dependability As can be seen, the gap is larger from IS department to faculty student than to staff users on all but the project work category That is, the area be-tween the staff and IS lines is less than the area between the IS and faculty/student lines In this single case example, the overall satisfaction measure and user satisfac-tion measure test significantly less for the faulty/student group than for the staff group This is an early indication ofless consonance leading to lower satisfaction

de-5 Summary

The purpose of consonance is to present a theory backed process incorporated into system planning and development that helps secure system success Basically, con-sonance prescribes that various stakeholders must come to agreement on aspects of the development previously left to system developers At the start of the project, users and developers must agree on the importance of certain deliverable charac-teristics The underlying IT infrastructure must conform to the strategic orientation

of the firm IS Goals must be developed consistent with organizational goals The more agreement there is among technology, external agencies, management, users, and IS people; the greater the alignment of the system to the mission of the organi-zation; the greater the consonance of the system

Much work will still need to be done is formalizing consonance Numerous rics will have to be developed to measure system properties that are deemed criti-cal by the development teams within organizations Studies should be performed to determine the more critical components of those we discussed and identify possible new areas of concern Consonance concepts will have to be fully integrated into the project life cycle for each adopting organization Early indications are that conso-nance holds Consonance is consistent with published studies and blends well with existing theory Subsequent testing must now determine if applying consonance theory does contribute to the success of an information system

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25 McCall M.W., Lombardo M.M Off The Track: Why and How Successful Executives Get Derailed 1983 (Tech Rept #21) Greensboro, N.C.: Center for Creative Leadership

Strengths and Weaknesses In: Clark K.E., Clark M.B (eds.) Measures of Leadership,

1990, pp 535-545 West Orange, NJ: Leadership Library of America

27 Milliman J., Von Glingow M.A., Nathan M Organizational life cycles and strategic national human resource management in multinational companies: implications for con-gruence theory Academy of Management Review, 1991, Vol 16, No.1, pp 318-339

inter-28 Nightingale D.V., Toulouse 1 Toward a multilevel congruence theory of organization Administrative Science Quarterly, 1977, Vol 22, pp 264-280

29 Sherman D The Relationship between Factors in the Work Environment and Turnover Propensities Among Engineering and Technical Support Personnel IEEE Transactions

on Engineering Management, May 1986, Vol EM-33, No.2, pp 72-78

30 Vancouver lB., Schmitt N.W An exploratory examination of person-organization fit:

organizational goal congruence Personnel Psychology, 1991, Vol 44, pp 333-352

31 Yammarino F.l, Atwater L.E Understanding Self-Perception Accuracy: Implications for Human Resources Management Human Resources Management, 1993, Vol 32, pp.231-247

32 Zahedi F Quality Information Systems 1995, Danvers, MA: Boyd & Fraser

The Impact of Time Pressure

on Idea Generation

Robert M Myers Rinker School of Business Palm Beach Atlantic College West Palm Beach, USA e-mail: myersr@pbac.edu Jay E Aronson*

Department of Management Terry College of Business The University of Georgia Brooks Hall Athens, USA e-mail: jaronson@blaze.cba.uga.edu

Robert B Wharton Rinker School of Business Palm Beach Atlantic College West Palm Beach, USA Abstract The issues of time pressure and idea generation are vital concerns for businesses today In this paper, we examine the impact of time pres-sure on idea generation and creativity One hundred and two busi-ness students were used to examine the impact of time pressure on: (a) the rate of ideas generated, and (b) the rate of the creativity of the generated ideas

Results of the study supported the research hypotheses that the mean rate of: (a) idea generation, and (b) the creativity of the ideas is unequal in groups operating under differing time pressure conditions

1 Introduction

Many organizations have a desire to improve the methods used in group decision making activities As a result, there has been much research to identify methods that would produce more efficient and effective group decision making Much of the early work did not involve the use of technology but made use of other tech-niques often centering around the concept of brainstorming This brainstorming

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theory was supplied by Osborn [14] as a method of group problem solving to crease the quality and quantity of ideas developed by group members In today's fast-paced business environment, time pressure is a major factor in conducting business Research, however, indicates that few studies have investigated this issue

in-as it relates to group processes, productivity, and creativity [11]

Some time pressure studies have found that group decisions made under time pressure have lead to poor performance for a variety of groups including govern-ment committees [7], various businesses [16], and even juries [5] Providing too much time for group decisions may even lead to boredom and dissatisfaction [8] Therefore, the selection of the proper time frame for groups to complete tasks suc-cessfully is critical

2 Theory and Research

Concepts associated with brainstorming have been widely investigated since born [14] first proposed the theory Over twenty studies have found that nominal groups (individuals generating ideas on their own, which are then combined with the ideas of other individuals also working on their own) generate more ideas than the same number of people in face-to-face interacting groups [3, 13]

Os-Only a few studies have examined the impact of time constraints on group ductivity The studies that have investigated time constraints and group productivity have used a variety of approaches Wright [18] found that group members under time pressure would systematically place greater weight on negative evidence than those group members not under time pressure Zakay and W ooler [19] found that high effectiveness diminished rapidly when time pressure was applied They re-ported that under time pressure, old habits are activated These old habits tend to overrule newly learned skills

pro-The concept of entrainment as it relates to group performance is a relatively new

area of research The entrainment concept when applied to group performance was initially investigated by Kelly and McGrath [11] Their definition of social entrain-ment is "a concept that refers to the altering of social rhythms or patterns by external conditions (such as time limits), and to the persistence of such new rhythms over time" [11, p 395]

Kelly et al [9] investigated the concepts of capacity and capability as they late to time pressure and group decision making Capacity problems generally involve issues of either time, load, or difficulty level This study found that if

re-a group is fre-acing cre-apre-acity problems re-associre-ated with time pressure, the members will attempt to compensate for the capacity problem by speeding up their work rate The concept of entrainment is observed when the group continues this pace in

a subsequent trial even when the time limit has been relaxed [9] Kelly et al [9] noted that groups operating under classic brainstorming instruction would most likely experience capacity problems as they attempt to generate as many ideas as possible

Kelly et al found that on the initial trial, groups work at a faster rate tion rate) the shorter the initial time limit and the higher the task load The study also found that groups that worked on the unusual-uses tasks and began with the short time period will generate ideas at about the same rate by the end of the time period as in the beginning It is thought that these groups will only experience

(produc-a c(produc-ap(produc-acity problem (produc-and they le(produc-ave the time period believing th(produc-at they will simply complete as many ideas as the time period permits If in the next longer time pe-riod, the group has problems of the same general difficulty and at least the same problem load, the group is likely to work at nearly the same rate during the longer time period to solve the capacity problem experienced by the group during the first time period [9]

Smith and Hayne [15] examined the impact of time pressure on groups that had

a prior history of working together Their study focused on the differences between computer supported groups and those not utilizing computer technology

Kelly and Karau designed their study of time pressure and entrainment to investigate both the "initial and persisting effects of time on group creativity" [10, p.179] This study utilized the unusual-uses tasks that have traditionally been used to measure group creativity when utilizing brainstorming rules [2, 12] Weare interested in determining which treatments will yield the largest numbers

of ideas with the highest level of creativity The prior research leads to the lowing hypotheses:

fol-HI: The mean rate of idea generation is unequal in groups operating under

differing time constraints

H2: The mean rate of the creativity of ideas is unequal in groups operating

un-der differing time constraints

Based on prior research, we expect decreases in perfonnance in the 3, 6, 9 minute treatment, moderate increases in perfonnance in the 6, 6, 6 minute treatment, and the highest increase in perfonnance in the 9,6,3 minute treatment

3 Method

3.1 Subjects

Subjects were undergraduate students enrolled in general business courses at a vate southern college One hundred and two students participated in 34 3-member groups The subjects were assigned to same-sex, 3 member groups during the ex-periment Gender was evenly distributed over conditions

pri-3.2 Tasks

The tasks consisted of three unusual uses tasks utilizing three common objects as noted by Kelly and Karau [10) Subjects were instructed to generate "as many creative and unusual uses as possible" for each of the objects Each 3-member

group participated in three time trials utilizing a different object for each trial The order of object section was random Every 30 seconds, the· group facilitator ver-bally noted the time remaining in the exercise

Each group performed three idea generating tasks under three different treatments

of sets of time periods Within the treatments, the time periods were designated as follows: one time period was considered to be high pressure (3 minutes), the sec-ond period provided adequate time to perform the task (6 minutes), and the third time period provided more time than necessary to perform the task (9 minutes)

3.3 Independent Variables

The independent variable studied was the sets (treatments) of time periods allotted during the experiment Three sets of time periods were used during this research These sets of time periods required each group to work for one of the three periods The sets of time periods were 3, 6, and 9 minutes, or 6, 6, and 6 minutes or 9, 6, and 3 minutes The groups were randomly assigned to one of the three cases Par-ticipants were also instructed to follow Osborn's brainstorming rules [14]

3.4 Software

The GSS computer software used for this study is GroupSystems for Windows This software presents a horizontally split screen to the user The ideas of all participants are displayed on the top half of the screen The lower half of the screen allows the user to type in his/her ideas The software can be controlled and monitored from the leader (facilitator) station located in the front of the decision support room

et al [4] In this procedure, two raters independently sorted all the ideas generated

by the groups based upon a five-point scale The scale ranged from 1 (very low creativity) to 5 (very high creativity) Raters were given definitions for each of the anchor points on the scale

Following the work of Hackman et aI., an idea was rated as a 1 (very low tivity) to the extent that it is "ordinary, everyday, or usual in content" [6, p 389]

crea-An idea was rated 5 (very high creativity) if it is "unique, fresh, unusual, surprising,

or refreshing" [6, p 389] The two raters were defmed as in agreement if their ratings were within one point of each other Reliability was then calculated as the correla-tion between the ratings assigned by the two independent raters [1, 2, 3] Inter-rater reliability was adequate (r=.98)

4 Results

4.1 Rate of Idea Generation

The mean and standard deviations for the idea rate measures of the 3, 6, 9 minute group are shown in Table 1 The results of the statistical analyses are depicted in Table 2 ANOYA analyses of groups utilizing this time period resulted in F(2.429)=0.82, p=O.442

Table 1 Group Means for Idea Rate (3, 6, 9 Group)

The mean and s~andard deviations for the idea rate measures of the 6 , 6, 6 group

are shown in Table 3 The results of the statistical analyses are depicted in Table 4

Table 3 Group Means for Idea Rate (6, 6, 6 Group)

Total 359 1203.16

The mean and standard deviations for the idea rate measures of the 9, 6, 3 group are shown in Table 5 The results of the statistical analyses are depicted in Table 6 ANOVA analyses of groups utilizing this time period resuiled in F(2,429)=38.94, p=O.OOO

Table 5 Group Means for Idea Rate (9, 6, 3 Group)

Therefore, the ANOVA analyses for the three time periods utilized in the study

support H I For all groups, a decrease in the mean rate occurs during the initial periods of the testing Additionally all three groups experienced an increase in the mean rate of ideas during the last 30 second interval II is important to note that the mean rate of idea generation for the 3 6, 9 minute treannent decreases as the amount

of time increases, while those of the 6, 6, 6 minute and 9, 6, 3 minute treabnents both increase, with the most dramatic increase in the laner case

Table 7 Group Means for Idea Creativity (3,6,9 Group)

Table 8 ANOVA for Idea Creativity (3, 6, 9 Group)

Error 429 37 1 2 0.09

The mean and standard deviations for the idea crealivity measures of the 6, 6, 6

group are shown in Table 9 The results of the statistical analyses are depicted in

Table 10 ANOVA analyses of groups utilizing this time period resulted in

F(2,357)=4.04, p=0.018

Table 9 Group Means for Idea Creativity (6, 6, 6 Group)

Table 11 Group Means for Idea Creativity (9, 6, 3 Group)

Table 12 ANOVA for Idea Creativity (9,6,3 Group)

5 Discussion

The results of the experiment suggest that time pressure impacts the rate of ideas generated by groups Examining the results of the ANOV A testing lends support to the concept of entrainment as identified by Kelly and Karau [8] Therefore, initially placing individuals into high pressure situations seems to result in sustained high pressure performance even when these individuals are later given extended time to complete similar tasks This can be readily observed by examining Tables 2 and 3 Conversely, when individuals are given longer initial periods to complete a task, these individuals inc'rease their productivity as the time pressure is increased This

is shown in Tables 6 and 7 Therefore, it follows that managers must carefully sider the time management and allotment that employees are provided to complete tasks Starting employees under high pressure conditions may create continued high pressure performance while providing too much time may be detrimental One

con-of the interesting findings con-of this study centers around the issue con-of idea creativity Tables 8, 10, and 12 show surprisingly low mean scores for creativity Therefore, the results of this study indicate that individuals under any time pressure condition generate ideas that are relatively low in creativity Managers must recognize that placing individuals in time pressure situations may result in ideas of relatively low creativity

6 Limitations and Future Research

There are several limitations associated with this study First, undergraduate ness students were utilized in this study Utilizing students in research that gener-ates ideas may limit those ideas based upon the participant's limited experiences

busi-Additionally, the students were given a portion of their final course grade for ply participating in the research Therefore, the motivation, and as a consequence, the pressure felt by the students may not have been as great as that to be expected

sim-in the bussim-iness environment To better understand the impact of time pressure, it would be appropriate to further study this variable utilizing individuals from the business environment Further research is appropriate for both non-management as well as management groups Studying the differences and/or similarities between these two groups may also provide additional insights into time pressure studies Second, the tasks used in this study were simplistic in nature Although the tasks were taken from prior similar research and grounded in the literature, care should

be taken when generalizing the results across all idea generating tasks ing differing research tasks is an area in which further research is suggested Third, it is possible that the creativity scale was inappropriate, or that the ideas generated may have not been very creative Many low-rated creative ideas may weigh more heavily than a few, very creative ideas

Investigat-Fourth, the facilitator in this study provided the time remaining for each exercise every 30 seconds During the final 30 second intervals, participants increased the mean rates of their tasks Additional research in which the participants are not told the remaining time in the exercise would be beneficial to determine if this trend remains constant

7 Implications for Managers

and GSS Design and Utilization

This work, and potential extensions, have some interesting impacts on how ers can incorporate collaborative computing technologies, and on how GSS could

manag-be designed and utilized in practice

Time pressure including entrainment effects impact on work groups regardless

of whether special technology is used or not A good manager has an expectation

of how much time an employee, or a work group requires to perform a task at ficient levels of competency and excellence Now, managers must develop an awareness of how collaborative computing technologies, such as GSS, impact on work practices A good manager must adjust his / her expectations for the group, and allow an appropriate amount of time to perform tasks at hand, especially when using GSS A manager can impose higher or lower time pressure to create a work environment to produce desired results, e.g., the quality level and amount of work performed Too much time can be just as detrimental as not enough time in terms

suf-of results obtained

GSS can be designed to incorporate time pressure effects induced by a manager

by indicating how close the group is to using their time allotment in completing various tasks In synchronous mode, i.e., groups working in a "decision" room -same time / same place, induced time pressure could keep the group 'synchronized' and move them along throughout their tasks while using GSS Time pressure effects

could be more dramatic in asynchronous, dispersed groups, i.e., groups using based groupware (see [17]) - different time, different place In this latter case, time

Web-pressure must be imposed by creating strict deadlines so that the entire group will

know when it can view the summarized results of their work to a certain point and thus know when to move on to the next phase of the meeting where they can make further contributions This is critical for dispersed groups in multiple time zones, which is not uncommon in the distance learning environments currently available

In either case, time pressure and the effects of entrainment could generally be posed by the facilitator in consultation with the manager of the group when setting the agenda for the meeting

im-References

I Dennis AR., Valacich J.S, Carte T., Garfield M., Haley B., Aronson J.E The ness of multiple dialogues in electronic brainstorming Information Systems Research,

effective-1997, 8, pp 1-9

2 Diehl M., Stroebe W Productivity loss in brainstorming groups: Toward the solution of

a riddle Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1987,53,497-509

3 Gallupe R.B., Bastianutti L.M., Cooper W.H Unlocking brainstorms Journal of Applied Psychology, 1991,76(1), pp 137-142

4 Gallupe R.B., Dennis AR., Cooper W.H., Valacich J.S., Bastianutti L.M., Nunamaker 1.F Electronic brainstorming and group size Academy of Management Journal, 1992, 35,

pro-7 Janis I.L Victims of groupthink Boston: Houghton Mifflin 1982

8 Karau S.J., Kelly J.R The effects of time scarcity and time abundance on group formance quality and interaction process Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 1993,28,pp.542-571

per-9 Kelly 1.R., Futoran G.c., McGrath 1.E Capacity and capability: Seven studies of trainment of task performance rates Small Group Research, 1990, 21, pp 283-314

en-10 Kelly 1.R., Karau S Entrainment of creativity in small groups Small Group Research, 1993,24(2), pp 179-198

1 1 Kelly 1.R., McGrath 1.E Effects of time limits and task types on task performance and interaction of four-person groups Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1985, 49(2), pp 395-407

12 Lamm H., Trommsdorff G Group versus individual performance on tasks requiring ideational proficiency (brainstorming) European Journal of Social Psychology, 1973,3,

pp 361-387

13 Mullen B., Johnson c., Salas E Productivity loss in brainstorming groups: A analytic integration Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 1991, 12, pp 3-23

meta-14 Osborn AF Applied imagination New York: Scribner 1957

15 Smith c.A.P., Hayne S.c Decision making under time pressure: An investigation of cision speed and decision quality of computer supported groups Proceedings of the Second National Association for Information Systems Meeting, Phoenix, AZ 1996

de-16 Thurow L The zero-sum society: Distribution and the possibilities for economic change New York: Basic Books, 1980

17 Turban E., Aronson J.E Decision support systems and intelligent systems Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1998

18 Wright P., The harassed decision maker: Time pressures, distractions, and the use of evidence Journal of Applied Psychology, 1974, 59(5), 555-561

19 Zakay D., Wooler S., Time pressure, training, and decision effectiveness Ergonomics, 1984,27(3), pp 273-284

A Discussion on Process Losses in GSS:

Suggested Ground Rules for the Electronic Environment

Wm Benjamin Martz, Jr

Accounting & MIS College of Business California State University, Chico e-mail: bmartz@csuchico.edu

Abstract

As research with group support systems (GSS) moves forward,

re-searchers must watch for and identify possible derivative process losses: proposed here as those process losses introduced into the group meeting process while researching a primary dysfunction This paper reviews a set of GSS literature in order to fInd support for such deriva-

tive process losses Five such derivative losses are proposed with

cor-responding ground rules for addressing them One such loss, "stronger identifIcation with non-consensus", is discussed in more detail

1 Discussion

"The fundamental triangle of societal problem solving requires that a team, ing with appropriate methodology, address the issue to be resolved Because of the extensive differences between an individual and a group, it would be astonishing if

work-the same methodology of exploration or inquiry would be equally effective for dividuals and groups." [42]

in-As research in group support systems (GSS) moves forward, it must recognize that the environment in which the research is conducted changes [2, 29] Essentially this means that as researchers identify and study one area of interest, other areas of interest may become salient The complexity of the group research area almost compels such trade-offs McGrath characterizes these trade-offs as "horns of a re-search dilemma" [26]

The fundamental reason for problem solving teams or groups is to "address the sue to be resolved." As the team works toward resolving that issue though, character-istics of the group members combine with those of the task in what is almost an infI-nite number of ways Combinations which move groups toward "better" decisions are termed process gains Those combinations which move the group away from

is-a "better" decision is-are termed process losses Shis-aw [35] identifIes the mis-ajor is-areis-as of process losses and process gains along with signifIcant group research in those areas

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Process losses are found with traditional groups, so researchers, should openly pect to fmd new process losses identified with electronic groups As ongoing itera-tions of research in this area occur that compare manual to electronic environments [9,4], new environments are created One such environment is the group support sys-tems environment defmed as an "interactive, computer-based environment that sup-port[ s] concerted and coordinated team effort toward completion of joint tasks" [29] Adapting Warfield's opening quote to this situation then, why would we expect the manual rules to follow through into the electronic environment In fact, we should expect these new environments create their own potential new process losses for study For our purposes, we shall refer to these type of process losses that occur

ex-as a consequence of a GSS ex-as "derivative losses"

The work comparing nominal group brainstorming to group brainstorming strates one such evolution of a derivative loss The format proposed by Osborn [30], group brainstorming (members producing a list as a group), has been compared over three decades in the research to the nominal group technique (NGT - individuals first working separately then combining to produce a list [40]) with the NGT winning most comparisons [27] GSS researchers [10, 29, 39], have updated this research stream into the electronic medium where electronic group brainstorming based on Osborn's brainstorming and Van Gundy's [41] brainwriting outperforms its electronic nominal group counterpart Interestingly, it should be noted that at the same time the brain-storming debate may be moving toward resolution, a new dysfunction - the stronger identification of non-consensus [4] may have been introduced

demon-Research in other areas may lead to similar evolution in those areas Gallupe

et al [14] studied the effects of group size in the electronic and non-electronic environments Analysis of the results showed that electronic groups evaluated bet-ter on productivity and production blocking Shepherd et al [36] studied the im-pact of social comparison on group performance Other dramatically broad research questions still abound in this field including questions on anonymity, "flaming", and business process reengineering [2]

So, it is proposed that as GSSs are implemented, researched and used, the new environment may create their own set of group process losses This paper lists

a few candidates for GSS derivative process losses and proposes ground rules for minimizing them in practice For example, one such loss - stronger identification of non-consensus - is suggested along with some experiential information on mini-mizing the loss

Table 1 GSS Process Gains and Losses

Derivative Process Losses Primary Process Gains

channel conflict better analytical support

information overload easier multi-phase voting

overhead costs more reflective

GSS influence choosing wrong "structure" increase in "effective" group size

stronger identification of non-consensus wider perspective of information domain

removal of time and geographical constraints

2 Process Loss: Channel Conflict

Most researchers agree that conceptually the activities perfonned by groups can

be defined as task oriented or social oriented If we envision the two types of activities as infonnation channels and we define the way to get infonnation dis-tributed to a group as the medium, then for traditional meetings with one serial, verbal medium, we can easily see that there is a conflict for use of the medium by the two channels

In fact, several methods and scales have been developed to encode a group's activities and to study groups along these scales Poole [32] produces meeting flow-charts describing the levels of each activity Lim and Benbasat [22] defined meeting comments as "on-task" or interpersonal for their research purposes In this context, then we have a mis-appropriation of the channel and have created a perceived "loss" when a comment is not "on task."

Miranda and Bostrom [28] recognize these separate channels in their work on managing group member conflict In their work, issue-based infonnation is task channel oriented while interpersonal infonnation relates to the social channel The conflict between the channels was monitored and used in their definition of pro-ductive groups In addition, popular theories when applied to GSSs, position them-selves to account for varying levels of both types of activities (see below)

SUGGESTED GROUND RULE: The key ground rule here is to acknowledge both channels Make sure to understand these channels and how they fit into your GSS or meeting culture For example, structure for meetings is important to the success of that meeting We have cases of leaders [23], facilitators [21] and soft-ware [39] all helping to structure electronic GSSs The source of structure for your meeting process may come from any combination of the three

Recognize that both channels are important to the group's successful completion

of their task The initial presumption of a GSS may be to focus on task-oriented activities at the sacrifice of social-oriented activities This may be inappropriate The weight of historical infonnation recognizing the social needs of groups means that those same should not be ignored in the electronic environment

3 Process Loss: Information Overload

Review of early problem solving literature [30, 33, 42, 43] identifies four ized problem solving processes or activities: discovery, the uncovering of infonna-tion; analysis, the decomposing of infonnation into data and perspective; synthesis, the recombining of data into infonnation; and choosing, the act of selection a solu-tion to the problem These four processes and their relation to the problem domain can be represented using Figure l

general-The divergent processes (uncovering, analysis) historically have been "easier" for groups to accomplish Research shows that electronic GSS have been able to outperfonn traditional methods for producing numbers of comments and numbers

of unique comments [36, 14, 10, 18,22] Along with this increased production, comes the associated dysfunction of groups inefficiently combining and filtering the large lists of comments, ideas, items, etc

Problem Analysis Synthesis Solution

Figure I General Problem Solving Activities/Phases

In fact, this activity of synthesizing large set of information leads directly to one operational definition of task complexity by Benbasat and Lim's [4] Here either of the independent activities of "generating OR choosing" were defmed as low com-plexity, while the combinatory activity of "generating AND choosing" was defmed

as a high complexity task Interestingly, this productivity increase has been studied

in relation to the amount of conflict it adds to the group [28]

In traditional groups, facilitator and meeting teclmiques have been used to cessfully combat this problem of information overload [12, 1] The practicality of the facilitator in the role of information manager has been studied in electronic meet-ings [16] There are indications that GSSs are allowing groups to produce more information than they or the GSS can economically, effectively or efficiently handle This calls for better and more teclmiques in GSSs to address the synthesis activity SUGGESTED GROUND RULE: In some ways, the ground rules for this de-rivative process loss parallel those of the traditional meeting with one key excep-tion The techniques must be supported by the GSS For example, the NGT may be

suc-an appropriate teclmique to control the divergent process While easily mented in a traditional meeting environment, it may not be available in the suite of methodologies supported by a particular GSS

imple-As GSSs are used, we must proactively interleave the production and evaluation activities Since the rate of information production (discovery/analysis) increases rapidly in GSSs, you should have the group evaluate (synthesize/choose) the infor-mation generated more often Practically, this means getting the group to categorize the collected information early and often Develop categories of information as soon as feasible; Sometimes pre-defmed categories using such teclmiques as SWOT, 4-M, [17] can help focus the group Some GSSs can help automate information around keywords and synonyms Importantly, the evaluation and categorization of the information provides an excellent time to add verbal (if available) and possibly social interaction to the process

4 Process Loss: Overhead Costs

Meetings have overhead costs Dennis and Valacich [10] propose that one such cost is the time "participants in electronic groups must read and think about ideas before those ideas can stimulate new ideas." Diehl and Stroebe [11] are a little more harsh when they proclaim that from their research with idea producing groups,

"waiting time is not used productively." Without passing judgment on the specific positions, it will be stipulated that there exists inefficiencies in having the whole group wait while one member completes the reading of the accumulated information SUGGESTED GROUND RULE: One way to attack this problem is to separate as much as possible the GSS activities, whether they are related to a meeting or to

a project, into two re-occurring, and complementary phases: interaction phase and individual phase In the individual phase, place the activities which can be accom-plished efficiently by individuals working on their own In the interaction phase, place those activities which can only be accomplished by group members interacting This

is a tough proposition to accomplish because interaction may be the best way to ture the information you need Sometimes, the overhead costs may be worth it

cap-In general though, allow participants to review any and all collected comments

as soon as possible and as much as possible Attempts should be made to move as much "read and think about" time to the individual phase

5 Process Loss: GSS Implies Wrong Structure

There are numerous methodologies and techniques for working with groups For example, one can find over 100 such techniques used by Fortune 500 businesses in the Vest Pocket CEO [17] Automating these techniques leads to an interesting dilemma though Each of the automated techniques comes with an inherent bias which mayor may not be appropriate for the group's problem environment The ways in which these methodologies and techniques organize information and permit groups to exchange that information is referred to as the "communication struc-ture" [19] Two popular theories try to incorporate this notion of communication structure into research models for GSSs Both are concerned with how well the group environment and GSS technique match

Media Richness [8] places different group environments such as face-to-face, telephone and written environments along a spectrum of how much of these activi-ties (social and task) the environment can support It further proposes that we need

to make sure the environment is large enough to accommodate the needs of the group, the task and the GSS technique Those groups which do not have a media rich enough (large enough) channel are susceptible to varying degrees of failure Therefore, the GSS chosen precludes the appropriate technique from being selected by imposing too narrow a structure

Adaptive Structuration Theory (AST) outlined by Poole and DeSanctis [31] dertakes to explain how groups adapt to new environments, especially as tech-

un-nology is introduced A concept of "appropriation" is used in the theory to refer

to "the manner in which structures are adapted by a group for its own use through

a process called structuration, wherein structures are continuously produced and reproduced (or confirmed) as the group's interaction process occurs" [15] Here

a group, through successful structuration, can use the channel for both social and task oriented activities

In all cases, the wrong techniques or meeting structures - those not providing enough richness or those not matching the group's environment - can be chosen simply because they are the ones available in a GSS This is the electronic version

of Groupthink, the dysfunctional group process of myopic thinking, where groups continue down an inappropriate meeting activity without questioning and are encour-aged by the structure bias of a GSS

SUGGESTED GROUND RULE: In a lot of ways, one should view the two theories together when selecting or implementing GSSs AST's flexibility implies more media richness while more media richness implies more room for flexibility The argument that maximizes probability of success is create the richest media -largest bandwidth - and to facilitate the group's ability to adapt within that band-width In practical terms, this means that 1) choosing a GSS with more flexibil-ity/functionality is probably the best initial tactic and 2) don't be surprised when groups use the GSS differently than expected

6 Process Loss: Reduction in Consensus

The American Heritage Dictionary defines consensus as 1) Collective opinion 2) General agreement or accord Working more with this concept, note that con-sensus is an opinion and therefore a human characteristic In tum, the opinion cre-ates a position or perspective Finally, the concept of "general agreement" can be viewed as a harmony within some defined tolerances Once the tolerance of agree-ment is broken, then there is no consensus

Juxtaposed against what consensus means, there are at least three important cepts of what consensus does NOT mean First, it does not mean "no disagree-ment." In fact, the above definition explicitly allows for disagreement with the con-cept of tolerances Second, in some situations consensus mayor may not be a goal

con-of the group Finally, the level con-of consensus is not static and may change quickly based upon new information received by the group

Individuals hold the dictionary and many more fundamental defInitions of sus when they combine into groups Any defInition of consensus for the group must respect an amalgam of these individual perspectives But, in the end, it is this amal-gam which generates the derivative process loss or dysfunction in the group For ex-ample, one individual may believe that a meeting produced a high level of consensus while a second individual believes little consensus was achieved in the same meeting

consen-A comprehensive defmition of consensus remains elusive with some researchers prescribing consensus while others are willing to simply describe On the one side, Sniezek and Henry [38] calculate consensus using "judgment accuracy" in their