IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jobhdp/v122y2013i2p214-221.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Separating the confident from the correct: Leveraging member knowledge in groups to improve decision making and performance

Author

Listed:
  • Bonner, Bryan L.
  • Bolinger, Alexander R.

Abstract

Groups often struggle to distinguish expert members from others who stand out for various reasons but may not be particularly knowledgeable (Littlepage & Mueller, 1997). We examined an intervention designed to improve group decision making and performance through instructing group members to search for information they already possessed that was relevant to a problem. Participants estimated values and expressed their confidence in their estimates individually and then a second time either individually or in a group. This was done with or without the intervention. Results indicated that: (1) groups were more confident than, and out-performed, individuals, (2) group decision making was best captured by models predicting more influence for more accurate members when the intervention was used and more influence for more confident members in its absence, and (3) groups that received the intervention out-performed groups that did not.

Suggested Citation

  • Bonner, Bryan L. & Bolinger, Alexander R., 2013. "Separating the confident from the correct: Leveraging member knowledge in groups to improve decision making and performance," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 122(2), pages 214-221.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:jobhdp:v:122:y:2013:i:2:p:214-221
    DOI: 10.1016/j.obhdp.2013.07.005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0749597813000745
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.obhdp.2013.07.005?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Laughlin, Patrick R. & Bonner, Bryan L. & Miner, Andrew G. & Carnevale, Peter J., 1999. "Frames of Reference in Quantity Estimations by Groups and Individuals," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 80(2), pages 103-117, November.
    2. Asare, Stephen K. & Wright, Arnold, 1995. "Normative and Substantive Expertise in Multiple Hypotheses Evaluation," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 171-184, November.
    3. Bonner, Bryan L. & Sillito, Sheli D. & Baumann, Michael R., 2007. "Collective estimation: Accuracy, expertise, and extroversion as sources of intra-group influence," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 103(1), pages 121-133, May.
    4. Hinsz, Verlin B., 1999. "Group Decision Making with Responses of a Quantitative Nature: The Theory of Social Decision Schemes for Quantities, , , , , , , , , ," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 28-49, October.
    5. Henry, Rebecca A., 1995. "Improving Group Judgment Accuracy: Information Sharing and Determining the Best Member," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 190-197, May.
    6. Bonner, Bryan L. & Baumann, Michael R. & Dalal, Reeshad S., 2002. "The effects of member expertise on group decision-making and performance," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 88(2), pages 719-736, July.
    7. Kyle Lewis & Donald Lange & Lynette Gillis, 2005. "Transactive Memory Systems, Learning, and Learning Transfer," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 16(6), pages 581-598, December.
    8. Sniezek, Janet A., 1989. "An examination of group process in judgmental forecasting," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 171-178.
    9. Lim, Rodney G., 1994. "Eliciting Confidence Intervals within the Context of the Revision and Weighting Model of Group Consensus Judgment," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 59(3), pages 348-370, September.
    10. Littlepage, Glenn & Robison, William & Reddington, Kelly, 1997. "Effects of Task Experience and Group Experience on Group Performance, Member Ability, and Recognition of Expertise," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 133-147, February.
    11. Henry, Rebecca A., 1993. "Group Judgment Accuracy: Reliability and Validity of Postdiscussion Confidence Judgments," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 11-27, October.
    12. Irving Lorge & Herbert Solomon, 1955. "Two models of group behavior in the solution of eureka-type problems," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 20(2), pages 139-148, June.
    13. Laughlin, Patrick R., 1999. "Collective Induction: Twelve Postulates," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 50-69, October.
    14. Patrick R. Laughlin, 2011. "Group Problem Solving," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9339.
    15. John P. Lightle & John H. Kagel & Hal R. Arkes, 2009. "Information Exchange in Group Decision Making: The Hidden Profile Problem Reconsidered," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(4), pages 568-581, April.
    16. Sy, Thomas, 2010. "What do you think of followers? Examining the content, structure, and consequences of implicit followership theories," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 113(2), pages 73-84, November.
    17. Samer Faraj & Lee Sproull, 2000. "Coordinating Expertise in Software Development Teams," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 46(12), pages 1554-1568, December.
    18. Sniezek, Janet A., 1992. "Groups under uncertainty: An examination of confidence in group decision making," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 124-155, June.
    19. Sniezek, Janet A. & Henry, Rebecca A., 1989. "Accuracy and confidence in group judgment," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 1-28, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jorge Ivan Romero-Gelvez & Monica Garcia-Melon, 2016. "Influence Analysis in Consensus Search — A Multi Criteria Group Decision Making Approach in Environmental Management," International Journal of Information Technology & Decision Making (IJITDM), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 15(04), pages 791-813, July.
    2. Argote, Linda & Fahrenkopf, Erin, 2016. "Knowledge transfer in organizations: The roles of members, tasks, tools, and networks," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 146-159.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Schultze, Thomas & Mojzisch, Andreas & Schulz-Hardt, Stefan, 2012. "Why groups perform better than individuals at quantitative judgment tasks: Group-to-individual transfer as an alternative to differential weighting," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 118(1), pages 24-36.
    2. Bonner, Bryan L. & Sillito, Sheli D. & Baumann, Michael R., 2007. "Collective estimation: Accuracy, expertise, and extroversion as sources of intra-group influence," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 103(1), pages 121-133, May.
    3. Anita Williams Woolley, 2011. "Playing Offense vs. Defense: The Effects of Team Strategic Orientation on Team Process in Competitive Environments," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 22(6), pages 1384-1398, December.
    4. Kerr, Norbert L. & Tindale, R. Scott, 2011. "Group-based forecasting?: A social psychological analysis," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 14-40, January.
    5. Önkal, Dilek & Zeynep Sayım, K. & Lawrence, Michael, 2012. "Wisdom of group forecasts: Does role-playing play a role?," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 40(6), pages 693-702.
    6. Aramovich, Nicholas P. & Larson, James R., 2013. "Strategic demonstration of problem solutions by groups: The effects of member preferences, confidence, and learning goals," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 122(1), pages 36-52.
    7. Steffen Keck & Wenjie Tang, 2021. "Elaborating or Aggregating? The Joint Effects of Group Decision-Making Structure and Systematic Errors on the Value of Group Interactions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(7), pages 4287-4309, July.
    8. Kerr, Norbert L. & Tindale, R. Scott, 2011. "Group-based forecasting?: A social psychological analysis," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 14-40.
    9. Boris Maciejovsky & David V. Budescu, 2020. "Too Much Trust in Group Decisions: Uncovering Hidden Profiles by Groups and Markets," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 31(6), pages 1497-1514, November.
    10. Enrico Imbimbo & Federica Stefanelli & Andrea Guazzini, 2020. "Adolescent’s Collective Intelligence: Empirical Evidence in Real and Online Classmates Groups," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 12(5), pages 1-16, April.
    11. Robert S. Huckman & Bradley R. Staats, 2011. "Fluid Tasks and Fluid Teams: The Impact of Diversity in Experience and Team Familiarity on Team Performance," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 13(3), pages 310-328, July.
    12. Brosig-Koch, Jeannette & Heinrich, Timo & Helbach, Christoph, 2014. "Does truth win when teams reason strategically?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 123(1), pages 86-89.
    13. Yuqing Ren & Kathleen M. Carley & Linda Argote, 2006. "The Contingent Effects of Transactive Memory: When Is It More Beneficial to Know What Others Know?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 52(5), pages 671-682, May.
    14. Baumann, Michael R. & Bonner, Bryan L., 2004. "The effects of variability and expectations on utilization of member expertise and group performance," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 93(2), pages 89-101, March.
    15. J. Alberto Espinosa & Sandra A. Slaughter & Robert E. Kraut & James D. Herbsleb, 2007. "Familiarity, Complexity, and Team Performance in Geographically Distributed Software Development," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 18(4), pages 613-630, August.
    16. Robert S. Huckman & Bradley R. Staats, 2008. "Variation in Experience and Team Familiarity: Addressing the Knowledge Acquisition-Application Problem," Harvard Business School Working Papers 09-035, Harvard Business School.
    17. Bonner, Bryan L. & Baumann, Michael R. & Dalal, Reeshad S., 2002. "The effects of member expertise on group decision-making and performance," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 88(2), pages 719-736, July.
    18. Aimée A. Kane, 2010. "Unlocking Knowledge Transfer Potential: Knowledge Demonstrability and Superordinate Social Identity," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 21(3), pages 643-660, June.
    19. Henry, Rebecca A. & Kmet, Jill & Desrosiers, Erica & Landa, Alyson, 2002. "Examining the Impact of Interpersonal Cohesiveness on Group Accuracy Interventions: The Importance of Matching versus Buffering," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 25-43, January.
    20. Buehler, Roger & Messervey, Deanna & Griffin, Dale, 2005. "Collaborative planning and prediction: Does group discussion affect optimistic biases in time estimation?," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 97(1), pages 47-63, May.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jobhdp:v:122:y:2013:i:2:p:214-221. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/obhdp .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.