Communication and Group Decision Making

Randy Y. Hirokawa, Marshall Scott Poole, Randy Y. Hirokawa, Marshall Scott Poole

• Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc
• Year: 1996
• Print ISBN: 9780761904625
• eBook ISBN: 9781506320519
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Communication Studies
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

The long-awaited second edition of Communication and Group Decision Making advances a unique perspective on group decisionmaking, complementing approaches taken in management, psychology, and sociology. Group communication processes are extremely important, yet they have proven to be elusive and difficult to understand, and the type of theory necessary to make sense of the processes differs from those commonly found in the social sciences. This exceptional book gathers together and discusses a number of strong theoretical frameworks that have developed over the past 15 years. Providing important empirical evidence, the authors take stock of recent developments in group communication research. The essays are distinctive, both in their explicit focus on communication processes and in their location in a unique intellectual tradition.

PART

I

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER

1

Introduction

Communication and Group Decision Making

MARSHALL SCOTT POOLE
RANDY Y. HIROKAWA

The great mystery of all conduct is social conduct. I have had to study it all my life, but I cannot pretend to understand it. I may seem to know a man through and through, and still I would not want to say the first thing about what he will do in a group.

—Anonymous

A committee is a cul-de-sac down which promising young ideas are lured and then quietly strangled.

—Anonymous

There is a world of difference between making a decision alone and making a group decision. The unique chemistry of social interaction can distill the best that each member has to offer, creating a resonance of ideas and a synthesis of viewpoints. A different chemistry can stop the reaction and contaminate the product. The catalyst for such social chemistry is communication. It is the medium for the coordination and control of group activities, member socialization, group integration, and conflict management, among other functions.

As important as group communication processes are, they have proven elusive and difficult to understand. In part, this is because they are truly complex. The interaction of multiple parties subject to manifold psychological, social, and contextual influences is one of the most difficult objects of study in the human sciences. The type of theory necessary to make sense of processes differs from those commonly found in the social sciences. Rather than explaining dependent variables as a function of input variables, theories of process must account for the generative mechanisms that produce the interaction sequences and temporal processes that lead to various “outcomes” (Harré & Secord, 1973; Van de Ven & Poole, 1995). Theories of process are more like stories or narratives than traditional X-causes-Y explanations.

As a result of these complexities, theories of group communication have been relatively slow in coming. In the first edition of this book, along with other commentators of the early 1980s, we lamented the lack of theory in the area. As the present edition shows, a number of strong theoretical frameworks have developed over the past 15 years, along with considerable empirical evidence. At the time of this writing, at least two additional perspectives, an encompassing framework by Cragan, Shields, and Wright (1994) and the naturalistic perspective on groups (Frey, 1994b), are in the early stages of development. We hope there will be chapters on these in the next edition.

This book advances a unique perspective on group decision making that is complementary to approaches taken in management, psychology, and sociology The chapters are distinctive, both in their explicit focus on communication processes and in their location in a unique intellectual tradition. The field of speech communication has its roots in the humanistic discipline of rhetoric, with its dual concern for the critical study of speech and writing and for the pragmatics of effective communication. These emphases interact to produce pragmatically tempered theories. Because these theories focus on discourse, they tend to place greater emphasis on processes and skills than on inputs such as structures and traits. An additional leavening is the traditional rhetorical concern with larger philosophical issues. Communication scholarship has emphasized the careful analysis of theoretical assumptions and the importance of linking findings to overarching theoretical frameworks. A particularly important theoretical problem relevant to communication is the nature of meaning and how to arrive at full and rigorous interpretations of discourse. This combination of tendencies has produced a unique approach and problem focus, one that we believe fills an important niche in the study of group dynamics.

Another contribution of the field of communication to the study of groups has been in the development and refinement of methods for the study of interaction processes. Research on interaction poses methodological problems sufficient to give even the most energetic and skillful researchers pause. Outstanding among them are the interpretive problems of determining the meaning or function of communicative acts, the difficulties in sorting out group and individual sources of influence, and the logistical problems involved in dealing with the large masses of data generated by various observational techniques. Group communication researchers have tackled these problems with a wide array of approaches, some borrowed and improved, and some developed within the field. Communication researchers have developed a number of useful and interesting coding systems, such as Gouran’s (1969) system for the classification of orientation statements, Leathers’s (1969) process disruption coding system, Fisher’s (1970) decision proposal coding system and social information processing coding system (Fisher, Drecksel, & Werbel, 1978), Poole’s (Poole & Roth, 1989a) system for coding group work climate and conflict, and Hirokawa’s functional coding system (Hirokawa & Rost, 1992). Along with these have come theories and techniques for the assessment of reliability and validity of coding schemes and interpretations (Folger, Hewes, & Poole, 1984; Poole, Folger, & Hewes, 1987). Qualitative approaches have also been employed (see Frey, 1994a, 1995), including ethnography of communication (Phillipsen, 1977), discourse analysis (Geist & Chandler, 1984), and rhetorical criticism (Chesebro, Cragan, & McCullough, 1973). Techniques for analysis of interaction processes have been developed and refined, including flexible phase mapping (Holmes & Poole, 1991; Poole & Holmes, 1995), Markov and semi-Markov models (Hewes, 1980; Hewes, Planalp, & Streibel, 1980), and fuzzy-set models for consensus measurement (Spillman, Bezdek, & Spillman, 1979).

This volume takes stock of recent developments in group communication research. Each chapter pulls together a body of literature and advances an integrative framework for its particular area. The volume is divided into four parts. Part I gives an introduction to the topic of communication and group decision making. In this first chapter, we will consider some critical issues for theory and research. Chapter 2, by Lawrence Frey, presents a brief history of the area. Part II presents five theoretical perspectives on group communication and decision making: the functional approach (Chapter 3), symbolic convergence theory (Chapter 4), theory of structuration (Chapter 5), the bona fide group perspective (Chapter 6), and a socio-egocentric model of group decision making (Chapter 7). Part III is concerned with critical processes in group decision making. Chapter 8 presents theory and evidence on developmental processes in group decision making. The focus of Chapter 9 is communicative influence in decision making. Chapter 10 reviews the influence of communication on decision-making effectiveness. Chapter 11 concludes this section with a discussion of leadership communication and its role in group decision making. Part IV focuses on procedures and techniques for aiding group decision making. Chapters 12 and 13 are concerned with various types of procedures and their benefits and costs for decision-making groups. Chapter 14 presents an integrative theoretical framework for understanding how computerized group support systems affect decision making.

The remainder of this first chapter is divided into two sections. First, we discuss two general perspectives on the role of communication in group decision making. Then we consider some general issues that we believe are important to further advances in research on communication and group decision making.

Theoretical Perspectives on Group Decision Making

We can distinguish two views of how communication influences group decision making. Communication can be studied as the medium of group interaction, and thereby the channel for the effects of various factors on group decision processes and outcomes. In addition, communication can be viewed as constitutive of group decisions—as the means for creating the social reality in which a decision is constructed. In this view, communication is the very substance of decision making, rather than merely a channel.

COMMUNICATION AS A MEDIUM FOR DECISION MAKING

To regard communication as a medium is to place the main emphasis on factors or processes other than communication per se in the explanation of decisions. Two types of factors are invoked to explain decision behavior and outcomes: (a) factors describing the inputs into and context of the decision, such as group size, group composition, members’ preferences, or task type; (b) factors determining the nature of interaction processes, such as group polarization or leadership style. Decision processes and outcomes are treated as dependent variables, determined by the two sets of factors.

According to this view, communication serves as a medium for the influence of input or contextual factors on group processes. To give one example, group size has been found to be negatively correlated with average member input. It therefore is presumed to influence the communication medium, the amount of critical discussion that ideas receive and, through this, decision quality (Shaw, 1981, chap. 6). In similar fashion, members’ knowledge determines the expressed pool of ideas and thereby influences and limits group solutions (Davis, 1969). Exogenous factors—in this case, group size and range of knowledge—are the focus of interest, and communication is by and large simply a channel for their effects.

As a medium, communication can exert its own distorting or biasing effects on decisions, as in the case of groupthink (Janis, 1972). These effects are often converted into variables in their own right, however—causes acting parallel to or interacting with exogenous factors. Ultimately they too can be shown to depend on exogenous conditions. In general, the tendency of mediational research is to regard communication as a substrate that transmits the effects of exogenous factors that do most of the explanatory work.

This view is important because it recognizes the instrumentality of communication. As a primary tool of social action, communication mediates the effects of traits, knowledge, preferences, task characteristics, and scores of other influences on decision making. It is important to understand the nature of this mediation—which is often not at all simple—if we are to understand group decision making. Like all tools, communication can shape both the user and the forces applied.

COMMUNICATION AND THE CONSTITUTION OF DECISIONS

Though studies that regard communication as a medium are more common, we can also focus on the role of communication in the constitution of decisions. Communication constitutes decisions in at least two senses: (a) Through communication the form and content of decisions are worked out. Decisions can be viewed as emerging texts or developing ideas, and we can trace the communicative processes of accumulation, deletion, elaboration, and alteration of premises. (b) At a more fundamental level, decisions are social products embedded in “social reality.” Communication processes are the primary means through which social realities are created and sustained, and therefore are the prerequisites for making decisions. Studies of this grounding have focused on, among other things, the role of communication in creating shared realities (Bormann, Chapter 4, this volume), the enactment and use of structures in interaction (Poole, Seibold, & McPhee, Chapter 5, this volume), boundary setting (Putnam & Stohl, Chapter 6, this volume), and leadership as a mediational process (Barge, Chapter 11, this volume).

Studies of communication as a constitutive force necessarily have interpretive components, because they are concerned with social reality as experienced by participants. However, this does not rule out causal components in explanation; some studies also attempt to trace the effects of exogenous factors on interpretive and constitutive processes (and, in turn, the social constitution or mediation of these exogenous factors). Poole and McPhee (1994) describe this mode of explanation as dialectical.

The constitutive perspective is important because it considers the active role of communication in creating and sustaining social practices. It regards decision making as an inherently problematic phenomenon. It asserts that, at base, decision making depends on the skills of members and on the constitutive power of language and social action.

RELATIONSHIP OF MEDIUM AND CONSTITUTIVE VIEWS

The foregoing discussion suggests that any perspective that regards communication as constitutive also treats it as a medium. It is as a medium for other factors that the constitutive force of communication comes into play. However, the converse is not true. Perspectives that regard communication only as a medium disregard social construction. Although the majority of empirical studies have and continue to focus on communication as a medium, the constitutive viewpoint is gaining currency. Several of the theories in Part II and most of the chapters in Parts III and IV directly address the constitutive role of communication.

As both types of group communication theories evolve, we believe it is important that they tackle several key issues. Some of these are addressed in the next section.

Directions, Problems, Opportunities

Growth of our knowledge has the unexpected benefit of making us aware of what we do not know. As research advances, unresolved issues and unquestioned assumptions come into sharper focus. These can be viewed as gaps or shortcomings, but we believe it is more productive to view them as opportunities for ambitious scholars to make a contribution. At least five challenges confront group decision-making research at present.

WHAT, EXACTLY, IS A DECISION?

Judging by most accounts, defining a decision is fairly st...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Part I: Introduction
• Part II: Theories
• Part III: Processes
• Part IV: Procedures
• Index
• About the Contributors