Group decision making, technology and national culture - a qualitative approach

The paper outlines the results of a two nation cross-cultural study into group decision making within ordinary and computer supported groups. This study examines in a laboratory setting the changes between supported and unsupported groupwork in the values at work during groupwork sessions for groups of Australia and Malaysia. It thereby addresses an aspect of social behaviour. In the experimental setting, groups are faced with a decision-making situation and group members give reasons for their choice of an alternative and it is assumed their reasons are based upon their values.While the main goal of the study is to examine the interaction between culture and technology on decision-making groups, the aims of the study represented as a hierarchy would be: 1. to detect any differences in reference value systems between the two different decision-making situations (supported vs. unsupported) for groups of each of the two national cultures. It is assumed that such comparison would examine the impact of technology on each national culture. 2. to compare between each set of national groups’ differences in reasoning due to the presence of technology. This comparison would indicate the impact of culture on supported groupwork. The study found that there were differences between the groups from the two nations in the values they used in decision making and further differences between the groups when they moved from ordinary groupwork to computer supported groupwork. In addition these differences were not alike for the groups from the two nations. The paper concludes with some pointers drawn from the study to the design of future computer supported groupwork systems.