Coordinating Information and Decisions of Hierarchical Distributed Decision Units in Crises
Abstract
A program of research is described. The research addressed decision making by distributed decision makers using either consensus or leader structures and confronted by both routine tasks and different kinds of information system crisis. There were three phases--a macro combining published empirical research, a simulation, and experimentation. The first phase documented that experimental research can offer very limited guidance for administrators as it only rarely investigates groups, and never organizations, in crises. The second phase exposed the challenges of combining simulations of individual (e.g., cognitive), group, organizational, environmental, and task properties as a strategy for guiding future experimental research. The third phase extended the capabilities of an organizational simulator and used it as a testbed for experiments. The simulator uses networked personal computers for all communications and records all communications and transactions between team members. Despite training in the simulator prior to experiments, participants failed to effectively exploit potential crisis response capabilities. Results suggest the importance of expanding systemic perspectives and practice with short-term redesign of available systems for people who work in distributed decision environments subject to crises. Experience with the simulator also suggested guidelines for future experiments on pseudo-organizations.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Aug 01, 1997
- Accession Number
- ADA336263
Entities
People
- Gerald L. Rose
Organizations
- University of Iowa