EFFECTS OF INQUIRY METHODS AND AMBIGUITY TOLERANCE ON PREDICTION PERFORMANCE*

This study examined the comparative effectiveness of four inquiry methods on a financial prediction task. Inquiry methods included the expert (E), devil's advocate (DA), and dialectical inquiry (DI) techniques as well as a combined devil's advocate-dialectical inquiry (DADI) technique. Also, the moderating effects of ambiguity tolerance were considered. Results indicated that when the state of the world was opposite to the assumptions underlying a plan, the DA, DI, and DADI approaches were all superior to the E approach. Further, for high ambiguity-tolerance subjects, the DA and DADI approaches led to significantly better prediction performance than the E approach, and the superiority of the DADI approach over the DI approach was marginally significant. Results suggest that decision makers' levels of ambiguity tolerance should be considered before recommending their use of either the DA or DADI approach as an ill-structured decision-making aid.