It is in fact impractical to take an instance on whether or not group decision making is

always better or the process pays off even worse in certain implications. The viability of

collective decision making can be influenced by an assortment of numerous variables. In general,

group decision making can have positive or negative impacts, contingent upon the particular

circumstance [ CITATION Bra96 \l 1033 ]. For an example, group decision making in many

cases need to encounter clash of ideas to come up to a certain conclusion, this might develop a

sense of ego and rivalry in a workplace. On contrary to this, the fact that it tends to generate a

wider variety and higher quality of decision alternatives is also largely prominent.

Regardless of the way that there are numerous situational factors that influence the group

functioning, the following section outlines some pros and cons of decision making in groups.

Advantages:

Greater knowledge base: Since groups involve more than one person and two heads are always

considered better than one, group decision making has the tendency of greater knowledge and

more prominent information base [ CITATION Dan10 \l 1033 ]. All the members of the group

have their own specialties and they contribute lots of information and knowledge to the

knowledge base of the group. Thus, the decisions where knowledge is of paramount importance,

can be effectively taken only at group level.

Higher quality alternatives: An instance where group decision making ideally enjoys the upper

hand is the diverse strengths and expertise of its members. Having made the most of the unique

traits of group members, it is possible that the group can generate a greater number of

alternatives that are of higher quality than that at the individual level, allowing the group to

eventually reach a superior problem solution than at the level of an individual.

Effective implementation of decisions: The implementation part of the decisions made so far

will be more viable as the enforcer of the decision made are the actual participants of the

decision making process. The usage of choices will be more successful as collective decisions

create feeling of ownership and individuals are more dedicated to the execution of the decision

which they themselves have taken part in [ CITATION Lut05 \l 1033 ].

Elimination of personal biases: As a number of people are involved in the decision making, the

biases they have introduced due to individual decision making are eliminated. The decisions

become more reliable and dependable as compared to individual decisions [ CITATION

Maz04 \l 1033 ].

Disadvantages:

Time consuming: The process is highly time consuming in terms of assembling the group and

usually a group takes more time in reaching an agreement since there are too many opinions to

be taken into consideration [ CITATION Cha10 \l 1033 ].

Lack of accountability: If the group decision turns out to be a bad one, the responsibility for the

same will not be traceable to any particular character, in a sense if everyone is responsible for a

decision, then no one is [ CITATION Bra96 \l 1033 ]. In addition, group decisions can make it

easier for members to deny personal responsibility and censure others for terrible choices.

Opinions can be swayed: Despite the fact that collective decision making is seen as a decent

approach to reach a conclusion that is best for everybody, there are still a few drawbacks to this

technique. It is simple for the opinions of some to be controlled or influenced by other group

members. This implies having access to impartial opinions is not generally conceivable.
Expensive: Group decision making is very costly as far as time, cash, energy and worker hours

is concerned. There is likewise a hypothesis which says that the bigger a gathering gets, the less

is the individual commitment from every part [ CITATION Cha10 \l 1033 ].

References

Brahm, C., & Kleiner, B. H. (1996). Advantages and disadvantages of group decision‐ making

approaches. Team Performance Management: An International Journal, 2(1), 30-35.

Chand, S. (2010). Group Decision-Making : it’s Advantages and Disadvantages. Your Article

Library. Retrieved February 4, 2016, from http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/decision-

making/group-decision-making-its-advantages-and-disadvantages/27657/

Levi, D. (2010). Group Dynamics for Teams (3rd ed.). London: SAGE Publications Inc.

Luthans, F. (2005). Organizational Behavior (10th ed.). Boston: McGraw Hill Irwin.

Maznevski, M. (2004). Understanding Our Differences: Performance in Decision-Making

Groups with Diverse Members. Human Relations (47), 531-535.