Communication and Group Decisionmaking

The long-awaited second edition of Communication and Group Decision Making advances a unique perspective on group decisionmaking, complementing approaches taken in management, psychology, and sociology. Group communication processes are extremely important, yet they have proven to be elusive and difficult to understand, and the type of theory necessary to make sense of the processes differs from those commonly found in the social sciences. This exceptional book gathers together and discusses a number of strong theoretical frameworks that have developed over the past 15 years. Providing important empirical evidence, the authors take stock of recent developments in group communication research. The essays are distinctive, both in their explicit focus on communication processes and in their location in a unique intellectual tradition.

M. Scott Poole (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin―Madison [communication arts]; M.A., Michigan State University [communication]; B.A., University of Wisconsin―Madison [communication arts]) is one of the nation’s top scholars in group communication and in organizational communication. Among his publications is one of the leading college textbooks on organizational communication (Strategic Organizational Communication, 5/e, Wadsworth); he is also co-editor of SAGE’s Handbook of Group Communication. He has been chair of the Organizational Communication Division of NCA and was the chair and founding member of NCA’s Group Communication Division. He is, or has been, a member of the following editorial journal boards: Human Communication Research, Communication Monographs, Communication Research, Communication Quarterly, Journal of Applied Communication Research, Academy of Management Review, Communication Theory, Quarterly Journal of Speech, Information Systems Research, Organization Science, Journal of Electronically-Mediated Communication, Journal of Organizational Discourse, Information and Organization.