DISTRIBUTED GROUP SUPPORT - THE EFFECTS OF VOTING TOOLS ON GROUP PERCEPTIONS OF MEDIA RICHNESS

Decision groups distributed both temporally and geographically encounter a multitude of coordination problems. This experiment used a set of GDSS Tools called ''List'' and ''Vote,'' and alternative interaction management procedures, as mechanisms for coordinating distributed groups using a computer conferencing system and for structuring group processes. The study examined media richness using a modification of the adjective-pairs developed by Zmud, Lind, and Young (1990). The tools significantly improved subjective perceptions of media richness. The attempted manipulation of the presence or absence of sequential procedures for the most part was not effective in creating significant differences in group perception of media richness.