An objective measure of consensus W.J. Tastle1 and M.J. Wierman2 1School of Business, Ithaca College, Ithaca, New York, NY, USA 2Computer Science Department, Creighton University, Omaha, NE, USA This paper describes a new measure of dispersion as an indication of consensus and dissention. Building on the generally accepted Shannon entropy, this measure utilizes a probability distribution and the measured distance between categories of the distribution to produce a value confined to the unit interval. Unlike other measures that need to be divided by some maximum value, i.e., the maximum entropy, this measure is always a maximum value at 1 and a minimum value at 0. The measure is applied to the Likert scale to determine degrees of group consensus when dealing with decision-making, though other scales are possible. Using this measure, group facilitators can easily determine the proximity of a group to arriving at consensus. The authors identify a set of criteria that a measure must satisfy in order to be an acceptable indicator of consensus and show how the consensus measure presented here satis.es all the criteria. The problem of understanding the complexities of group decision-making is well studied, but the ancillary problem of identifying a measure by which to determine if a group of individuals is converging on consensus, remains elusive although much work has been recently conducted. It is common for a group of well-innstentioned individuals, engaged in purposeful dialogue, to utilize the concept of conseus in making decisions, especially when it is important to maintain some sort of collegiality. Robert’s Rules of Order, while effective, usually results in someone or some group, ‘loosing’ in the resulting decision if the chair calls for a vote having ‘sensed’ that all are in agreement. Such feelings may be incorrect. Although consensus building is a typical method used in decision-making, few measures exist which allow for the easy determination of the degree to which a group is nearing the point of agreement. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a mathematical measure that is intuitive and easy to apply. Paper presented at Measuring Behavior 2005 , 5th International Conference on Methods and Techniques in Behavioral Research, 30 August - 2 September 2005, Wageningen, The Netherlands. © 2005 Noldus Information Technology bv