Knowledge-based Support in a Group Decision Making Context: An Expert-Novice Comparison

Authors

Fiona Fui-Hoon Nah, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USAFollow
Izak Benbasat, University of British Columbia, CanadaFollow

Abstract

This research examines the use of knowledge-based and explanation facilities to support group decision making of experts versus novices. Consistent with predictions from the persuasion literature, our results show that experts exhibit a higher level of criticality and involvement in their area of expertise; this not only decreases their likelihood of being persuaded by a knowledge-based system, but also accounts for a lower group consensus among experts as compared to novices. Novices are more easily persuaded by the system and find the system to be more useful than experts do. This research integrates theories from the persuasion literature to understand expert-novice differences in group decision making in a knowledge-based support environment. The findings suggest that the analyses and explanations provided by knowledge-based systems better support the decision making of novices than experts. Future research is needed to integrate other types of information provision support (e.g., cognitive feedback) into knowledge-based systems to increase their effectiveness as a group decision support tool for domain experts.

Recommended Citation

Nah, Fiona Fui-Hoon and Benbasat, Izak (2004) "Knowledge-based Support in a Group Decision Making Context: An Expert-Novice Comparison," Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 5(3), .
DOI: 10.17705/1jais.00048
Available at: https://aisel.aisnet.org/jais/vol5/iss3/5

DOI

10.17705/1jais.00048