Research Note: Electronic Brainstorming: Illusions and Patterns of Productivity

• Authors: Alan R. Dennis;Joseph S. Valacich
• Venue: Information Systems Research
• Year: 1999

In a recent article in Information Systems Research,Pinsonneault et al. (1999) present a thorough and compelling summary of theoretical factors that act to enhance and impair productivity in electronic brain- storming (EBS) groups as contrasted with traditional verbal brainstorming groups and nominal group brainstorming. They assume that all theoretical factors are equally important and remain constant, and there- fore add the factors together to conclude that, from a theoretical standpoint, there should be no difference in idea generation performance between EBS and nomi- nal groups.They also present an equally thorough summary of previous empirical research comparing EBS and nom- inal group brainstorming to which they add additional empirical data from their own study. Their analysis suggests that there have been no clear patterns in the empirical research because nominal groups outper- form EBS groups as often as EBS groups outperform nominal groups.1 They then conclude that group par- ticipants and "many researchers may also be under theillusion that EBS is superior to all other brainstorming approaches, when in fact this is not supported by em- pirical evidence" (Pinsonneault et al. 1999, pp. 127- 128). They end by suggesting that more research is needed to understand the conditions under which EBS groups may outperform nominal groups.We agree that EBS is not superior to all other brain- storming approaches--nominal group brainstorming in particular--under all conditions. Thus the goal of this research note is to extend Pinsonneault et al. (1999) by helping to clarify the empirical evidence and theo- retical factors to better understand when EBS groups may be expected to perform more poorly than nominal groups and when EBS groups may be expected to per- form better than nominal groups.We agree with Pinsonneault et al. (1999) that most theoretical factors are likely constant and that sum- ming them is appropriate. However, we disagree that all factors are constant and can therefore be summed. We have argued elsewhere that one of the most im- portant differences between EBS and nominal group brainstorming is the synergy or cognitive stimulation that EBS participants receive from reading the ideas of other participants, and that this synergy is not constant