A quasi-experiment was conducted in which groups made business decisions under time pressure. Half of the groups were supported with a group support system (GSS) called the Electronic Discussion System; half had no computer support. The groups consisted of college students who had considerable experience with the GSS and the decision task and had worked together for the previous 10 weeks. Decision quality, decision speed, and leadership emergence were measured. All groups received significant financial rewards in direct proportion to their decision quality and decision speed. GSS groups used more time to arrive at their decisions but made decisions of higher quality than non-GSS-supported groups. In addition, there was some evidence that, under time pressure, GSS-supported groups used a more leader-directed decision process than did other typical users of GSS.
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