Patterns of Team Interaction Under Asymmetric Information Distribution Conditions

Over the last three decades, research on processing of asymmetrically distributed information in teams has been mostly dominated by studies in the hidden profile paradigm. Building on the groundbreaking studies by Stasser and Titus (1985, 1987), almost all studies in the hidden profile paradigm have been conducted under controlled experimental settings, with various design components closely following the original design by Stasser and Titus. In conducting the current research, I pursued two goals. First, I aimed to explore whether relaxing certain assumptions of the hidden profile would impact our understanding of team information processing. I designed my study so that participants did not develop any preferences before joining their team. Additionally, unlike the common design in the hidden profile studies, participants did not start with a clear list of alternatives; instead, they had to generate the alternatives as they progressed in the task. My second goal in conducting this research was to understand what behaviours and interaction patterns could lead to effective processing of asymmetrically distributed information in a team. Data were collected from 28 teams of MBA students who worked collaboratively on a problem-solving task in which information was asymmetrically distributed among team members. In addition to recording mentioning and repetition of shared and unshared pieces of information, building on a coding scheme developed by Scott Poole, I developed a coding scheme that captured information-oriented and solution-oriented behaviours of team members. I analysed the data using three techniques: analysis of aggregated coded behaviours, interaction pattern analysis, and phasic analysis. I found that even in the absence of initial preferences and a clear list of alternatives, team discussion is biased with shared information, with unshared information being mentioned and repeated significantly less than shared information. Furthermore, I found that compared with both average- and low-performing teams, high-performing teams tend to allocate a larger share of their discussion to information-oriented activities and less to solution-oriented activities. Additionally, the phasic analysis showed that low-performers, engaged in recurrent solution proposal and confirmation phases, suggesting that they engaged in alternative negotiation. Theoretical implications of these findings for team information processing and decision-making literatures are discussed.