The facilitation role in group support systems environments

The introduction of group support systems (GSS) into organizations has created a new role -- the GSS facilitator. None of the research to date has defined the role of the facilitator in depth or has provided empirically grounded guidelines for effectively performing this role. This paper presents the results of a rigorous assessment of the role of the facilitator in computer-supported environments. The overall purpose of the study was to empirically develop the critical dimensions of the facilitator's role.