ABSTRACT: Few studies of group support systems (GSS) have considered cultural dimensions in their analysis of GSS applications, and even fewer have used empirical data to test their hypotheses. This cross-cultural field study was an exploratory investigation of the effects of "national culture" (U.S. and Mexican) upon group consensus levels and perceptions of participation equity and satisfaction within GSS environments and non-GSS (manual) environments. Within both the U.S. and Mexican cultures, results indicate no significant differences in consensus levels between GSS and manual treatments. However, both U.S and Mexican groups generated significantly greater relative changes in consensus levels using GSS technology versus manual technology. Comparison between cultures shows that Mexican groups generated higher levels of consensus than U.S. groups with main effects due to culture and experimental treatment (i.e., GSS support). While U.S. group participants reported no differences in satisfaction among experimental treatments, Mexican participants reported higher satisfaction levels using GSS-supported environments. In a similar pattern, U.S. participants reported no differences in perceived participation equity between treatments, while Mexican GSS participants reported higher participation equity than Mexican manual participants. A comparison study between cultures found that Mexican participants across all treatments perceived higher levels of satisfaction and participation equity than U.S. participants with main effects due to culture.
Key words and phrases: consensus in group support systems, cross-cultural use of group support systems, group support systems