Since their introduction a quarter of a century ago, group decision support systems (GDSS) have evolved from applications designed primarily to support decision making for groups in face-to-face settings, to their growing use for web conferencing, online collaboration, and distributed group decision-making. Indeed, it is only recently that such groupware applications for conducting face-to-face, as well as virtual meetings among dispersed workgroups have achieved mainstream status, as evidenced by Microsofts ubiquitous advertising campaign promoting its Live Meeting electronic meeting systems (EMS) software. As these applications become more widely adopted, issues relating to their effective utilization are becoming increasingly relevant. This research addresses an area of growing interest in the study of group decision support systems, and one which holds promise for improving the effective utilization of advanced information technologies in general: the feasibility of using virtual facilitation (system-directed multi-modal user support) for supporting the GDSS appropriation process and for improving structured group decision-making efficiency and effectiveness. A multi-modal application for automating the GDSS facilitation process is used to compare conventional GDSS-supported groups with groups using virtual facilitation, as well as groups interacting without computerized decision-making support. A hidden-profile task designed to compare GDSS appropriation levels, user satisfaction, and decision-making efficiency and effectiveness is utilized in an experiment employing auditors, accountants, and IT security professionals as participants. The results of the experiment are analyzed and possible directions for future research efforts are discussed.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LSU/oai:etd.lsu.edu:etd-06022006-161901 |
| Date | 09 June 2006 |
| Creators | Lagroue, Harold Joseph |
| Contributors | Thomas D. Clark, Jr., Ye-Sho Chen, Rudolf A. Hirschheim, Edward F. Watson, Michael A Carpenter |
| Publisher | LSU |
| Source Sets | Louisiana State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-06022006-161901/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached herein a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to LSU or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below and in appropriate University policies, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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