A77.
Hayne, S., Pollard, C. & Rice, R.E. (2003). Identification of
comment authorship in anonymous group support systems. Journal
of Management Information Systems, 20(1), 303-331.
This study examines whether technically “anonymous”
comments entered by participants during Group Support System (GSS) brainstorming
sessions are, in fact, unidentifiable. Hypotheses are developed and
tested about the influences of comment length, comment evaluative tone,
duration of group membership, and prior communication among group members
on the accuracy of attributions they made about the identity of the authors
of these technically anonymous comments. Data on prior communication
and group history about each of the 32 small groups was collected before
participants began using a GSS for brainstorming. Immediately after
the session, each member was asked to attribute authorship to a sample
of the session’s anonymous comments (comment authorship was known to the
researchers). The study’s participants made attributions that were
significantly more accurate than chance guessing. Factors that had
a positive influence on attribution accuracy include evaluative tone of
comments (especially humorous comments), and amount of prior communication
received from other group members. Vividness of comment tone and
comment length was not significantly correlated with attribution accuracy.
Although the attributions of anonymous comments were more accurate than
expected by chance, most of the attributions were incorrect. Implications
and consequences of both accurate and inaccurate attribution are discussed
along with suggestions for future research.