The Bounded Rationality of Groups and Teams

The notion of bounded rationality offers new conceptual and methodological perspectives on the study of groups and teams in organizations that hold the promise of providing alternative interpretations of several process losses that have been described in the literature. In this talk, I will introduce a prominent task in group research, the hidden-profile task, that is often cited as an example demonstrating that groups fail to form good decisions. Extensive research on this task has suggested that groups are not able to connect the dots and integrate relevant knowledge and, as a consequence, form poor decisions (for overviews, see Lu, Yuan, & McLeod, 2011; Sohrab, Waller, & Kaplan, 2015). Our research demonstrates, though, that approaching this task from the perspective of bounded rationality can alter the interpretation of these findings. Guided by the bounded rationality perspective, we illustrate in which situations groups can solve hidden-profile tasks. The study of the bounded rationality of groups and teams has much to offer to the field of group communication and decision making. The talk will conclude by highlighting key insights from group research that has explored the bounded rationality of groups and offer a conceptual and methodological agenda for future research.