Opening up the black box in GSS research: explaining group decision outcome with group process

Group process, a central element of group interaction, has been frequently treated as a black box in many prior Group Support Systems (GSS) studies. Most prior GSS research focused on group outcome and efforts to study group process were relatively limited. As a result, effects of group process on group outcome in GSS use are not fully understood. This study focuses on group process and intends to explain variations in group decision outcome from group influence process. Group process variables investigated were informational influence, normative influence, and influence equality. Group decision outcome variable studied was group consensus. The role of task type was also examined. The research findings indicated that GSS had a complex impact on group decision outcome for two reasons. First, this impact was mediated by group influence process variables. Second, this impact was moderated by task type. The research findings provide an additional clue on why prior GSS empirical studies in the literature yielded inconsistent research findings. The implications of the research findings to GSS researchers and users are finally discussed. (c) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.