Maydays and Murphies: A Study of the Effect of Organizational Design, Task, and Stress on Organizational Performance
Abstract
How should organizations of intelligent agents be designed so that they exhibit high performance even during periods of stress? We present a formal model of organizational performance given a distributed decision making environment in which agents encounter a radar detection task. using this model, we examine the performance of organizations with various organizational designs and task characteristics subject to various stresses. We distinguish two types of stress - external stress (such as hostile events that we call maydays) and internal stress (such as communication channel breakdown that we call murphies). This formal analysis suggests that: (1) regardless of stress, performance is enhanced if there is a match between the complexity of organizational design and task; (2) task characteristics and maydays (external stress) have more effect on performance than murphies (internal stress) and organizational design; (3) the effects of murphies (internal stress) can be ted by training, but only to a limited extent; (4) technology induced stress typically is more debilitating than personnel induced stress.... Stress, Organizational design, Organizational task, Stylized radar task, Task characteristics, Procedures, Inter-relationship.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jul 29, 1992
- Accession Number
- ADA261901
Entities
People
- Kathleen Carley
- Zhiang Lin
Organizations
- University of Pittsburgh