Leadership Style,Anonymity, and Creativity in Group Decision Support Systems: The Mediating Role of Optimal Flow

ABSTRACT Prior research indicates that flow, a psychological state characterized by concentration, enjoyment, and intrinsic motivation, may be linked to creativity of individuals participating in computer-mediated meetings. A laboratory experiment was conducted to evaluate the effects of leadership style (transactional contingent reward and transformational) and anonymity level (identified and anonymous) on flow and creativity of 159 undergraduate students working in groups performing a creativity task using a Group Decision Support System (GDSS). Results demonstrated that flow mediated effects of leadership on creativity in a GDSS context, and its role may be moderated by anonymity. Results also indicated that both flow and anonymity were required for enhancing creativity in a GDSS context. Implications for practice and research are discussed.     

Information Technology Support For Debiasing Group Judgments: An Empirical Evaluation

Human judgments, made by either individuals or groups, have been found to contain biases. One of the most prevalent biases identified is the availability bias, associated with the phenomenon that events which are more available to human memory are correspondingly judged as occurring more frequently or as being more important. This paper is concerned with how to reduce the availability bias in the group context. It reports an experiment in which two computer-based support facilities, electronic brainstorming and electronic mail, were tested for their contributions to reducing the availability bias. A 2 x 2 experimental design was used: electronic brainstorming (available or not) and communication mode (electronic or verbal). Forty teams of three members each were asked to work on a task involving the rating of the importance of a number of items associated with a secretary's task. Both electronic brainstorming and electronic communication helped reduce the availability bias. In both cases, the reduction in bias was due to increased attention paid to items that were found to have low availability in the absence of these support tools. Copyright 2000 Academic Press.     

Group Creativity and Technology

Despite the popularity of brainstorming, research has shown that verbal brainstorming is not always effective in increasing group creativity. On the other hand, its electronic counterpart, electronic brainstorming, appears to produce much better results. Is technology the panacea for group idea generation? This paper first reviews the theory of group creativity and then examines the characteristics of electronic brainstorming that makes it more effective than verbal brainstorming. From the success of electronic brainstorming, it then argues that the use of technology might be the key to overcome the space and time constraints that are commonly faced by creativity groups.     

B2C电子商务中的消费者决策支持系统

B2C电子商务环境下的决策支持系统主要包括专家系统,推荐系统和智能代理系统或者其组合等。其目标是帮助消费者发现和澄清需求,在网络海量的信息环境下发现和比较信息,筛选符合客户需要的产品,或者提供建议。该文回顾了近年来网上决策支持系统的研究进展,并对其在B2C电子商务中的应用前景和研究发展趋势进行了预测与展望     

Evidence for a Data-Based Environmental Policy: Induction of a Behavior-Based Decision Support System

To advise policy‐makers about possible courses of action in the environmental domain, psychological science should employ a support system that allows for evidence‐based decisions with respect to the three generic policy questions: what, where, and how. The key to such a system is a measurement instrument in which environmental motivation becomes tangible in individual actions. In this article, we provide empirical examples of such a decision support system in the environmental domain. It consists of (a) evidence about environmental motivation of persons, (b) evidence about motivation's spatial distribution, (c) knowledge about the socio‐cultural conditions that affect individuals when they translate motivation into action (i.e. structural information), and (d) a forecast of the environmental impact—the concrete conservation potential of various behaviors. Pour conseiller les décideurs à propos de lignes de conduite possibles dans le domaine de l’environnement, la science psychologique devrait utiliser un système qui tienne compte des décisions provenant des trois questions génériques suivantes: quoi, ou et comment? La clé d’un tel système consiste en un instrument de mesure dans lequel la motivation environnementale devient tangible dans les actions individuelles. Dans cet article, nous prenons des exemples empiriques de telles aides à la décision dans le domaine de l’environnement. Peut être ainsi montré a) la motivation environnementale des personnes, b) la distribution spatiale de la motivation, c) l’influence de la connaissance des conditions socioculturelles des individus quand ils transforment motivation en action (i.e. information structurale) et (d) la prévision de l’impact environnemental sur le maintien potentiel de divers comportements.     

Theoretical Frameworks for the Study of Structuring Processes in Group Decision Support Systems

Most theoretical perspectives used to explain the use and effects of communication and decision support technologies assume some form of technological determinism. Inconsistencies in the research findings have prompted theorists to reject the assumptions of technological determinism in favor of an emergent perspective. To date, only adaptive Structuration theory (AST) offers the promise of satisfying two requirements for explanation based on an emergent perspective: recursivity and unique effects. The current article reviews the application of AST to the study of a relatively recent technology in the work place—group decision support systems (GDSS). Next it discusses AST's challenge to capture, dynamically and precisely, GDSS processes and outcomes. In response to these concerns, self-organizing systems theory (SOST) is reviewed and applied to problematic areas in GDSS research with the aim of advancing AST.     

临床决策支持系统应用中的伦理思考

基于人工智能技术的临床决策支持系统(clinical decision support system, CDSS)是可以辅助临床医护人员进行医疗决策的交互式系统。基于知识库和非知识库的两种形式和临床应用情况逐步被熟知。CDSS意在通过解决目前医疗资源不足、配置不合理和标准化治疗不规范等问题提高医疗质量,但也面临着医疗信任、诊断准确性、诊断标准、责任归属等潜在挑战。在CDSS研发与应用中,只有秉持以患者为中心的理念,提高CDSS安全性、明确其诊断标准,才能提升信任基础,从而真正回归临床并提高患者福利。

     

Supportive Classroom Environments For Creativity in Higher Education

ABSTRACT This qualitative study was an investigation of a supportive classroom environment for developing student creativity. Observations and interview data collected focused on assessment, classroom activities, and the teacher's effort in creating this supportive environment. Teacher-student relationships, de-emphasizing standardized assessment, and encouraging multiple perspectives was significant to this creative milieu.     

Decision Development in Computer-Assisted Group Decision Making

New computer technologies to aid group communication and decision making are becoming increasingly widespread. This study analyzes how one such technology, a group decision support system (GDSS), affected how group decisions developed over time. The study contrasted decision paths in groups using the GDSS with groups using the same procedural structures incorporated in the GDSS manually and with groups using no procedural structures. A flexible phase mapping method was employed to map group decision paths. The resulting set of seven decision paths varied in both sequence and number of decision phases. An optimal matching procedure was used to compute similarity measures among the 40 paths, and cluster analysis and multidimensional scaling were used to generate an empirical taxonomy of decision paths. Results indicated that the nature of decision paths varied both across the three conditions and within conditions. The decision path types were also related to three outcome variables: consensus change, perceived decision quality, and decision scheme satisfaction. Results indicated that those decision paths that most resembled logical normative sequences had superior outcomes to those that did not.     

Proactive Personality and Employee Creativity: The Effects of Job Creativity Requirement and Supervisor Support for Creativity

This study examined the relationships between proactive personality and employee creativity and the moderating roles of job creativity requirement and supervisor support for creativity in activating proactive personality associated with employee creativity. To provide a rigorous test of the hypotheses, we conducted a field study from a sample of 157 employee–supervisor pairs in South Korea. The results revealed that a proactive personality was positively associated with employee creativity. In addition, job creativity requirement and supervisor support for creativity jointly influenced the relationship between proactive personality and employee creativity. Specifically, proactive employees exhibited the highest employee creativity when job creativity requirement and supervisor support for creativity were both high.     

分布式决策支持系统设计中的心理学研究和趋势

分布式决策支持系统(DDSS)与心理学的关系日益密切,并受到学者的高度关注。由于其系统和硬件等的特殊性,它对人的心理和行为会产生不同的影响。本文针对分布式群体决策中的心理学研究,概述了已有成果、问题,并展望了这一新的研究领域。     

Narrowing the Creativity Gap: The Moderating Effects of Perceived Support for Creativity

This article examines the role of 3 types of perceived support for creativity in moderating the relation between creative self-efficacy and self-perceived creativity. The findings suggest significant interaction effects for perceived work-group support and supervisor support, but not for perceived organizational support. This study is among the first to (a) examine the importance of perceived support for creativity in unlocking creative potential and increasing creativity in organizations and (b) use interaction terms in structural equation modeling (SEM) to investigate moderator effects in an applied research setting. These results imply that organizational interventions focused on training supervisors and work-group members to support creativity in the workplace may be more effective than broader and less focused interventions at the organizational level.     

Interactional Influence in the Structuring of Media Use in Groups Influence in Members’Perceptions of Group Decision Support System Use

The aim of this study is to examine the ways in which individuals’perceptions of media use are influenced by others. Traditional theories of media use have proposed that perceptions of media use are shaped by individuals’demographic characteristics and the media's characteristics. However, three recent theories—critical mass theory, social influence model of media use, and adaptive structuration theory—suggest that individuals’perceptions of media emerge as a result of their interaction with others in their social network. Results from a longitudinal study of 30 group decision support system (GDSS) groups and 25 non-GDSS groups over a 3-week period indicate that interactional influence was a better predictor of individuals’perceptions of media use than were individuals’demographic characteristics or characteristics of the media.