Quality and Acceptance of an Evaluative Task: The Effects of Four Group Decision-Making Formats

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Abstract
The present study compared the quality and the acceptance of group decisions on an evaluative problem (NASA Lost on the Moon Exercise). Four decision-making formats were employed: interacting, consensus, the nominal group techinique (NGT), and the Delphi technique. No idiosyncratic modifications were made in any of the formats. The results indicated that the Delphi groups produced the highest quality decisions followed by those of consensus, interacting, and NGT groups. The decisions of the consensus groups had a higher level of acceptance than did those of the other three formats, which did not differ in terms of acceptance. Predictions based on past studies using unmodified decision-making techiques were consistently supported.