A study on the effects of dialectical inquiry, devil's advocacy and consensus-based decision making approaches on the group conflict variables.

• Main Authors: Goh, Chee Chew., Ng, Boon Teck., Roszilah Hariani Jaapar.
• Other Authors: Tung Lai Lai
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: DRNTU::Business::Accounting
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/51156
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Past researches have looked at the study of group conflict in Group Support System (GSS) environment via the employment of various decision approaches - Dialectical Inquiry, Devil's Advocacy, and Consensus-based approach. These studies have been conducted to evaluate outcomes such as the performance outcome quality, process and solution satisfaction and attraction to group. However, no prior study has looked at the process level variables such as the level and management strategies of conflict, nor the productivity of the conflict resulting from the use of these approaches. The effect of national culture (Singapore v United States of American) on the above variables have also be incorporated in prior research. This research project used an experiment consisting of 17 groups of 6 members each to compare the consensus-based (C) approach against dialectical inquiry (Dl) and devil's advocacy (DA) approaches to decision making in a GSS environment. The variables investigated in this study are the types and amount of conflicts, conflict management strategies, and conflict productivity. DI and DA approaches are expected to generate the highest level of issue-based and interpersonal conflict respectively. In terms of conflict management strategies, DI group is expected to have the greatest tendency to adopt integrative strategy; DA and C groups are expected to have the greatest tendency to adopt distributive strategy and strategy approach respectively. Conflicts generated under the DI approach is perceived by many groups to be the most productive in decision making. The results in this study indicated that DA groups actually generate the highest level of issue-based conflict. On the other hand, there is no significant difference between the three decision making approaches in terms ofinterpersonal conflict generated. DI and DA groups have similar tendency to adopt the integrative strategy to conflict management, while C groups have the greatest tendency to adopt the avoidance strategy. As for the distributive strategy, DA groups demonstrated the greatest tendency to adopt it. The results also indicated that the highest level of conflict productivity is perceived in groups using the DI approach to decision making. Task types have apparently no effect on the three decision making approaches in terms of the variables being investigated in this research.