Knowledgebased Support in a Group Decision Making Context: An ExpertNovice Comparison

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Knowledge-based Support in a Group Decision
Making Context An Expert-Novice Comparison

• Fiona Fui-Hoon Nah, University of
  Nebraska-Lincoln
• Izak Benbasat, University of British Columbia

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Presentation Outline

• 1. Motivation
• 2. Research Question
• 3. Theoretical Foundation
• 4. Research Hypotheses
• 5. Research Design
• 6. Research Findings
• 7. Contributions Future Research

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Motivation

• Important decision making tasks are usually
  assigned to small groups
• Group effect due to process gains
• more information available
• multiple perspectives and approaches
• synergetic effects
• errors checked and corrected
• increased understanding of problem
• Groups make better judgments than average
  individual members in analysis and evaluation
  tasks (McGrath, 1984 Nah Benbasat, 1999)

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Motivation

• Knowledge-based System (KBS) Support benefits
  group decision making (Nah Benbasat, 2000)
• Knowledge-based technology plays a key role in
  knowledge management within organizations
• Capture and codify knowledge for transfer and
  shared utilization in organizations (Alavi and
  Leidner, 1999)
• Use of KBS for Group Decision Making
• Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) for business
  planning (Swann, 1988)
• The Financial Collaborative (TFC) for financial
  planning (Sviokla, 1989)

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Research Question

• Does the impact of KBS differ between experts and
  novices in group decision making?

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Theoretical Foundation

• Social Judgment Theory
• Experts tend to be more ego-involved and critical
  than novices in evaluating arguments
• Experts are more likely to reject arguments that
  are different from their own
• gt Experts are less likely than novices
• 1) to accept KBS recommendations, and
• 2) to reach true consensus

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Measurement of Congruence (DV)
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Research Hypotheses

• H1 Novices will achieve better congruence in
• group judgments than experts
• H2 Novices will reach higher consensus in
• group judgments than experts

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Research Design
Individual Judgments
Training Familiarize with Features of KBS
Group Discussion with KBS Support
Group Judgments
used to assess congruence
Individual Judgments
used to assess group consensus
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Subject Characteristics

• Novice subjects (27 subjects 9 groups of 3)
• Final year undergraduate and MBA students in the
  business school who were specializing in
  Accounting or have taken Financial Statements
  Analysis course
• Expert subjects (18 subjects 6 groups of 3)
• Professional financial analysts working in
  financial institutions

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Financial Analysis Task

• Evaluate financial position, performance, and
  potential of a company
• Determine an appropriate loan amount
• Judgments on a 1-10 scale
• current liquidity, long-term solvency, asset
  utilization, value of stock as loan collateral,
  quality of financial and operating management

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Experimental Setup
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Research Findings Quantitative(using
Mann-Whitney non-parametric test)

• H1 Novices achieve better congruence in
• group judgments than experts
• (plt.05 supported)
• H2 Novices reach higher consensus in
• group judgments than experts
• (plt.05 supported)

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Research Findings Qualitative

• The following observations were made from the
  expert vs. novice group decision making processes
• Experts were more critical of KBS advice and
  explanations than novices
• (heightened criticality hypothesis)
• Novices relied more heavily on the KBS than
  experts

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Contributions of Research

• First study to offer empirical evidence on
  effects of KBS support on group decision making
• Recognize the importance of explanation
  facilities in KBS (in another part of this work)
• Provide better understanding of group decision
  making by experts vs. novices in KBS-supported
  scenario
• There are few, if any, research on expert vs.
  novice group decision making
• Integrate persuasion theories into KBS research

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Questions Discussions