Randy Y. Hirokawa and Abran J. Salazar Task-Group Communication and Decision-Making Performance

Overview Why do some groups arrive at high-quality decisions whereas others do not? – Research supports the claim that group decision- making performance is influenced by informational resources, group effort, critical thinking skills, and decision rules and logic. – The relationship between group-communication and decision-making outcomes has been explored in three research perspectives: Mediational Functional Constitutive

Mediational Perspective Group interaction process is a “medium through which the ‘true’ determinants of group decision-making performance are able to exert influence.” In this perspective, “factors other than communication account for the performance of decision-making groups.”

Mediational Perspective Factors that account for performance – Group member acquisition, distribution, and pooling of knowledge/information needed for effective decision making – Exposure and remedy of individual group member’s informational, judgmental, and reasoning deficiencies – Exertion of sufficient effort, possession of adequate knowledge and skill, and use of appropriate task- performance strategies for the work and setting

Mediational Perspective Uncontested Findings (relating communication to group accuracy and quality in decision making) – Two categories of communication behavior negatively correlated with decision accuracy: “volunteered information” and “proportion of transmitted information” – Measures of group interaction predicted decision- making success better than members’ taks- relevant knowledge or training in task-procedures

Mediational Perspective – Less “ego-defensive” communication is associated with higher quality group decisions – More communication that “suggests solution” is associated with higher quality group decisions – Groups using active conflict resolution strategies (where formal authority resolves issues unresolved by seeking consensus) produced faster decisions of higher quality than groups that used only consensus to resolve disagreement – Groups where cooperation and “genuine information seeking and compromise” are enforced achieve higher quality decisions than groups using distributing styles (winning/losing party, negative evidence, hostile questing, voting, railroading, or accommodation.

Functional Perspective “[I]nteraction is a social tool that group members use to perform or satisfy various prerequisites for decision making.” (169) Some functionalists simply claim that group members use communication to persuade one another.

Functionalist Perspective The most advanced functionalist view argues that a group’s final (big) decision is the result of small subdecisions reached on four questions. – Does the situation require a choice to be made? – What should be achieve/accomplished by choosing? – What choices are available? – What are the positives and negatives of each choice?

Functionalist Perspective Uncontested Findings (relating communication to group accuracy and quality in decision making) – High quality group decision-making is correlated with assessment of positive and/or negative qualities of alternative choices (depending on the evaluation demanded by the task) – High quality group decision-making is correlated with communication that performs problem analysis and establishes criteria.

Functionalist Perspective – Groups composed of members with similar prediscussion preferences tend to produce fewer communicative utterances fulfilling functional requisites of successful decision-making. – It is indicated that communication has greater impact on decision-making quality as intractability of task and heterogeneity of member’s predispositions increase. (!)

Constitutive Perspective Focuses on the role of communication in the constitution of group decisions. Two forms of constitutive perspective: – Group decisions are “emerging texts or developing ideas” wherein communication is the process by which form and content of decisions is worked out. – Group decision are social products that emerge from a social milieu (or reality) created and sustained by communication. Two representatives: Social Convergence Theory and Structuration Theory.

Constitutive Perspective – Symbolic Convergence Theory: consensual group decisions emerge from the presence of a shared symbolic world (rhetorical vision) generated by story- telling. – Structuration Theory: group members draw on a group’s structures, i.e., rules and resources, when they communicate with an aim toward decision. Rules describe and explain appropriate and expected communicative behavior and how such behavior should be interpreted. Resources are materials, knowledge, and skills. Structures guide group communication and are generated by such communication.

Constitutive Perspective Uncontested Findings (relating communication to group accuracy and quality in decision making) – Groups’ ability to surface and resolve opposition (substantive conflict) was influenced by the Group Decision Support System employed in decision- making.

Conclusion “What types of advice can communication scholars give to practitioners concerning how to improve the accuracy and quality of the decisions groups make, or help groups reach consensus?” “The answer, sadly, is ‘Not Much.”