Research
Research on the effectiveness of the stepladder technique has shown that stepladder groups produce higher-quality decisions than conventional groups.
The number of studies that have tried to test the Stepladder technique empirically is limited, but the results are encouraging. In his study, Orpen (1995) reported the following:
After completing the problem (the NASA moon landing exercise) individually, 160 management students were randomly assigned to one of 40 four-member groups in either the stepladder condition or the conventional group condition, where subjects entered their groups and worked on the problem simultaneously. The stepladder groups produced significantly better decisions than the conventional groups, as hypothesized, suggesting that managers can use the technique to improve team performance in appropriate circumstances.
Performance gains associated with the stepladder technique have been documented for face-to-face groups. In Rogelberg et al.’s (1992) initial study, each member of the group proceeded through the stepladder process at an experimenter-regulated pace. Results indicated that groups who used the stepladder technique outperformed groups who used a more conventional approach. These findings were later replicated by Orpen (1997). Recently, Rogelberg and O’Connor (1998) allowed groups to self-regulate (i.e., use as much time as needed at each step). Again, stepladder groups outperformed groups employing a conventional approach.
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