Group, sub-group and nominal group idea generation in an electronic meeting environment

How should a group organize itself to generate ideas? Should all group members work together as one group, should they form several smaller sub-groups that work independently, or should members work separately as individuals? Previous research outside of Electronic Meeting Environments presents a clear and unambiguious answer members should work individually. Any benefits from group interaction (i.e. process gains) for idea generation are outweighed by the negative effects of group interaction (i.e. process losses). This paper re-examines this question in an electronic meeting environment through a reanalysis of two prior experiments. In contrast to findings from previous non-computer-mediated idea generation research, groups generated more ideas (with higher quality) than did the same number of participants working as individuals or in several smaller sub-groups.