The importance of facilitator role behaviors in different face to face group support systems environments

Given the increased demand for group work, it has been argued that strong facilitation skills are critical for successful business interactions, yet many of us view meetings as time-consuming and unproductive exchanges, and few of us have had any formal training in designing and facilitating meetings. This paper presents the results of a study on the importance of critical facilitator role behaviors across different face-to-face group support system (GSS) environments. The study measured the importance of each of 16 role dimensions to effective GSS facilitation and investigated differences across different GSS technologies. Additionally, perceived facilitator training needs and current performance across all dimensions were measured.<<ETX>>

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