DISTRIBUTED GROUP SUPPORT - THE EFFECTS OF VOTING TOOLS ON GROUP PERCEPTIONS OF MEDIA RICHNESS

Decision groups distributed both temporally and geographically encount er a multitude of coordination problems. This experiment used a set of GDSS Tools called ''List'' and ''Vote,'' and alternative interaction management procedures, as mechanisms for coordinating distributed grou ps using a computer conferencing system and for structuring group proc esses. The study examined media richness using a modification of the a djective-pairs developed by Zmud, Lind, and Young (1990). The tools si gnificantly improved subjective perceptions of media richness. The att empted manipulation of the presence or absence of sequential procedure s for the most part was not effective in creating significant differen ces in group perception of media richness.