Effects of experience-based work patterns in a GSS environment

Existing group support system (GSS) research has focused on the impacts of GSSs on conventional group-work patterns. Few studies have examined the eff ects of different group-work patterns in a GSS environment. Specifically, w e are interested in group-work patterns that vary in terms of group members ' experience or ability levels. In this paper, we report on an exploratory experiment designed to compare the effects of three distinct experience-bas ed work patterns on group decision quality, efficiency, and participant sat isfaction in the case of GSS usage. There is the conventional work pattern in which persons of differing experience levels work simultaneously in a me eting. An alternative pattern consists of experienced participants working on a problem first and then passing their results on to less experienced pa rticipants. Yet another pattern reverses this sequence. Our results show th at while groups in the conventional work pattern are more efficient in cons idering alternative solutions, groups organized in the other two experience -based work patterns can produce higher quality solutions. We observed no s ignificant differences in participant satisfaction among the three group-wo rk patterns. These findings suggest that a GSS can be as effective (or even more effective) with alternative group-work patterns as it is with the con ventional pattern.