A Cross-Cultural Study on the Effect of Group Discussion in AHP-Group Decision Making for a Car Purchase

In the trend toward globalization, cross-cultural teams in organizations are becoming more and more common. In particular, the influence of China and Western Europe on the global economy is getting increased. With this trend, it is important to understand cross-cultural characteristics for group decision making in managerial environments. This study aims at analyzing cross-cultural differences between China and Western Europe in light of the effect of group discussion in group decision making. An experiment simulating a decision of a car purchase was conducted. A total of 48 subjects (24 Chinese and 24 Western Europeans) assigned in decision groups were asked to judge relative importance ratios of nine factors affecting their purchase decisions using the AHP program developed for the experiment. Three dependent variables (consistency, satisfaction, and consensus) were measured. Chinese were slightly more consistent than Western Europeans in discussion-involved group decision making. In terms of decision satisfaction, Western Europeans were more satisfied with discussion-included decisions than discussion-excluded decisions. Chinese, on the contrary, did not show a significant difference. There was no significant difference between two cultures in decision consensus.