Advantages of Group Decision Making
i. Use of groups in decision making tends to lead to higher quality decisions that a single individual working alone might have obtained.
ii. More information is available to the group than is available to an individual – members have varying experiences, education and qualifications.
iii. A group is likely to generate more alternatives – so each person may have their own differing ideas.
iv. Acceptance of the decision will probably be greater than it would be if an individual made the decision alone – it involves an element of democracy.
Disadvantages of Group Decision Making
i. Groups tend to take longer to reach a decision, because all members may wait to discuss every aspect of the decision.
ii. The group may try too hard to compromise to the exclusion of a superior decision that the group could have attained with more effort.
iii. A single individual may dominate the process – setting aside all the potential advantages of group decision making.
iv. Groups may succumb to group thinking i.e. become interested in maintaining cohesiveness and good feelings towards one another and lose sight of the groups original objectives.
v. Here the group makes decisions that protect its members and individuals and the group as a whole rather than decisions that are in the best interest of the overall organization.