A comparative content analysis of face-to-face vs. asynchronous group decision making

  • Authors:

  • Raquel Benbunan-Fich;Starr Roxanne Hiltz;Murray Turoff

  • Affiliations:

  • CIS Department, Zicklin School of Business, Box 11-220, One Bernard Baruch Way, Baruch College, CUNY, 10010 New York, NY;IS Department, College of Computing Sciences, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ;IS Department, College of Computing Sciences, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ

  • Venue:
  • Decision Support Systems
  • Year:
  • 2003

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Abstract

A field experiment was conducted to analyze the process and contents of group discussions. Groups solved a case study either orally or through an asynchronous computer-mediated communication system. Findings show that asynchronous groups had broader discussions and submitted more complete reports than their face-to-face counterparts. However, there was no difference in the ability to transfer information from the discussion to the report; under both conditions, about 15% of the issues mentioned in the discussion were omitted from the final report. In terms of coordination, face-to-face teams covered the case study questions sequentially, while asynchronous groups were more focused on solving their general disagreements.