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This research project was a cross-cultural field experiment designed to measure the effects of "national culture" (U.S. and Mexican) upon group performance in GSS (Group Support Systems) and non-GSS environments. Relatively few studies have considered cultural dimensions in their analysis of GSS and even fewer have employed empirical data to test their hypotheses. In view of the significant global developments in information technology, this has been a disappointing shortcoming of current information technology (IT) research. Two groups of hypotheses were developed that predicted the effects of three independent variables; national culture, support technology and identification features upon group performance, consensus levels and satisfaction perceptions, both within and between each national culture (U.S. and Mexico). Hofstede's model of cultural differentiation was used to predict the relative performance and perceptions of U.S. and Mexican participants. The research methodology utilized an abbreviated version of Hofstede's Cultural Values Survey as a pre-test questionnaire and a GSS Group Perceptions questionnaire as a post-test questionnaire to measure group and individual perceptions. A double translated Spanish version of each questionnaire was developed by the author for the Mexican sample. Experimental results within each culture indicate that Mexican participants generated more comments, more comment lines and more idea categories per participant using GSS technology than manual technology. Similar results, as expected, were reported for the U.S. sample. With regard to consensus, Mexican manual groups generated higher consensus levels than Mexican GSS groups. However, there were no significant differences in consensus levels between GSS and Manual groups for the U.S. sample. With regard to satisfaction levels, there were no significant differences between GSS and manual groups for the U.S. sample. However, the Mexican sample reported significant differences between GSS and manual groups in "satisfaction with the group decision" and perceived "participation equity". Experimental results comparing cultures indicate that while U.S. GSS groups were more productive than Mexican groups, Mexican groups, across all experimental treatments, generated higher levels of consensus than U.S. groups. However, there were no significant differences in changes in consensus levels between U.S. and Mexican groups. With regard to satisfaction and perceived participation equity, Mexican groups expressed more "satisfaction with their group's decision" and perceived more "participation equity" than U.S. groups. These differences were especially pronounced in comparing U.S. GSS and Mexican GSS groups. |
