Building a business around group support technology

Abstract

As the importance of group work gains recognition, entrepreneurs and corporations are evaluating the feasibility of offering technology-assisted meeting and planning applications to the general business community. This paper presents one corporation's decisions, experiences and lessons learned in building a business offering around group support technology. The primary focus is on describing the process and considerations in establishing a Group Support System (GSY as a commercial venture.To determine if there are significantly different user perceptions of the value of technology-assisted meetings between firms offering fiee internal support and a for-hire corporation, participant evaluation data is compared with the results presented in a recent paper reporting experiences in a major aeronautics company.

Using Group Support Systems (GSS) in the Teaching of International Business

“…Huber (1984) defines these systems as "software, hardware, and language components and procedures that support a group of people engaged in a decision-related meeting." There is now a growing body of empirical research that provides evidence that these systems can improve meeting processes and outcomes (Dennis et al, 1994;Dennis & Gallupe, 1993;Dennis et al, 1990;Gallupe & Basianutti, 1991;Hitchcock, Lewis, & Keleman, 1994;Jessup & Tans&, 1991;Lewis & Keleman, 1990;Lewis & Whiteley, 1992;Venkatesh & Wynne, 1991).…”

“…Hitchcock and Lewis (1994) report strong participant agreement that GSS produces such benefits as (1) improved channels of communications; (2) helping set clear objectives;…”

Group Support Systems: Barriers to Adoption in a Cross-Cultural Setting

“…More recently, field research has been conducted with business executives, professionals and diplomats with a variety of real-world tasks (e.g. Lyytinen et al, 1993;Hitchcock et al, 1994). As we indicated above, however, published research tends to paint a rather rosy picture of GSS, often focusing on the benefits achieved in GSS meetings (Dennis et al, 1990;Nunamaker et al, 1989) but paying little attention to the documentation of GSS failings and failures (Gri~din, 1994;Vreede and Muller, 1997).…”