Sara Waring

A taxonomy of endogenous and exogenous uncertainty in high-risk, high-impact contexts.

By reference to a live hostage negotiation exercise, this study presents a taxonomy of uncertainty that can be usefully applied to assist in the categorization and application of findings from decision-making research conducted in naturalistic (specifically critical incident) settings. Uncertainty was measured via observational methods (during the exercise and by reference to video footage), decision logs, and postincident simulated recall interviews with trainee police officers. Transcripts were coded and analyzed thematically. Uncertainty was dichotomized as deriving from either endogenous sources (about the problem situation itself) or exogenous sources (about the operating system that is dealing with the incident). Overall, exogenous uncertainty (75%) was more prevalent than endogenous uncertainty (25%), specifically during discussions on plan formulation and execution. It was also qualitatively associated with poor role understanding and trust. Endogenous uncertainty was more prevalent during discussions on situation assessment and plan formulation. The taxonomy provides a useful way for organizational researchers to categorize uncertainty during the naturalistic observations of workplace interactions and decision making. It reduces the complexity associated with observational research to allow organizational psychologists to better tailor their recommendations for reducing uncertainty. Dealing with endogenous uncertainties would entail targeting decision making specific to the problem incident (e.g., introduce training or policy to reduce redundant fixation on rote-repetitive superordinate goals and focus on more short-term actionable goals during situation assessments). Dealing with exogenous uncertainties would entail improving decision making relating to management and team processes across critical incidents (e.g., training to clarify distributed roles in critical incident teams to aid plan formulation and execution). Organizational researchers interested in uncertainty management in the workplace should utilize this taxonomy as a guide to (a) categorize uncertainty and (b) generate applicable recommendations from their findings.

Information sharing in interteam responses to disaster

Research demonstrates that information sharing is facilitated by familiarity, and having a common understanding of problems, use of lexicon, and semantic meaning. These factors can be difficult to develop within extreme environments such as disasters as members of the multi‐agency system that responds often have limited experience of working together. Public inquiries repeatedly highlight the impact of information sharing difficulties on public safety, but limited academic research has focused on identifying concrete behaviours that facilitate interteam information sharing within such environments. This paper presents a case study of a national disaster response exercise involving 1,000 emergency responders. Data consist of structured observations, recordings of interteam meetings, and interviews with emergency responders. Results of mixed‐method analysis indicate that interteam information sharing is delayed by limited situation awareness and poor articulation. Conversely, adopting behaviours that promote common frames for understanding interteam capabilities and information requirements improves information sharing and potentially reduces cognitive effort required to process information. Findings contribute to interteam communication theory by highlighting that in complex, time‐constrained environments, having a shared understanding of responsibilities and information requirement is important for minimizing redundant deliberation and improving relevance and speed. Practitioner points Facilitating the exchange and interpretation of relevant information is important for improving situation assessment, decision‐making, and the implementation of appropriate actions for addressing risks. Interteam information sharing can be particularly challenging when teams are comprised of members from across different organizations with different language and cultures that must form ad hoc to rapidly respond to problems in extreme environments. Adopting communication strategies that develop common frames‐of‐reference can facilitate information sharing and interteam responses to disasters.

Between a rock and a hard place of geopolitically sensitive threats – critical incidents and decision inertia

ABSTRACT While the SAFE-T model of decision making emphasizes naturalistic decision making, its potential for cross-comparative analysis of incidents with global implications remains underutilized, which the current paper aims to address. To this end, it draws upon open-source reports from unclassified American, British and Russian intelligence reports to explore the management of three types of 10 high-profile geopolitically sensitive threats from across the globe (verifying potential terrorist identity, hostage rescue and national/international security). Defining features of such incidents include decision makers’ ability to prospectively model competing scenarios in which they must select between options and where every outcome looks aversive and high risk (‘damned if you do or damned if you don’t decisions’). A frequent consequence of such calculations is ‘decision inertia’ (a failure to execute an important, irrevocable decision resulting in non-optimal consequences), or ‘implementation failure’ (a failure to make a choice). Combining the benefit of the theoretical framework and hindsight knowledge of the analyzed incidents, the paper facilitates theoretical understanding of decision inertia and failures to act. Encouraging the consideration of multiple scenario endings contingent on a wide spectrum of factors and unique cultural-historical context, it also helps identify past decision errors in order to inform assessment and management of similar geopolitical threats in the future.