INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SUPPORT FOR COLLABORATIVE DECISION-MAKING IN AUDITING - AN EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION

Several studies in behavioral decision making have found that decision s made by interacting groups tend to ''shift'' from the mean judgment for the same task when performed individually. While this ''choice-shi ft'' phenomenon has been documented in experiments where group partici pants interact face-to-face, the impact of Group Decision Support Syst ems (GDSS) on this phenomenon has not been investigated. GDSS permit s imultaneous and anonymous interaction and provide a structured environ ment for group discussion. This paper reports the results of an experi ment investigating whether decisions reached by groups using GDSS tech nology differ from those made by traditional ''face-to-face'' groups f or the same judgment task. The results revealed that GDSS-mediated com munication, whether anonymous or non-anonymous, resulted in no signifi cant choice shift while the face-to-face communication mode resulted i n a significant cautious shift. The results also revealed that GDSS-me diated communication was more efficient, and that there was no signifi cant difference in subjects' perceived satisfaction with the group pro cess between GDSS-mediated and face-to-face groups.