It's a small world after all: contrasting hierarchical and edge networks in a simulated intelligence analysis task

Abstract

This article is themed around macro and systems Ergonomics, and examines the effects of command and control structures. Despite some differences in behaviour and measures of agility, when given the freedom to do so, participants organised themselves into a small world network. This network type has important and interesting implications for the Ergonomics design of teams and organisations.

Network measures for characterising team adaptation processes

“…Team members usually make choices in their communication patterns, which affects the function of the group and the information sharing within the team (Schraagen, Huis in 't Veld, and de Koning 2010;Stanton, Walker, and Sorensen 2012;Walker et al 2012). Two of the most common communication structures are the classical hierarchy and the network structure, whereby the degree of centralisation has an important effect on group performance and individual functioning such as the availability of information in problem-solving situations (Bavelas 1950;Leavitt 1951).…”

Dynamical analysis in real time: detecting perturbations to team communication

“…In the context of real-world organisations and teamwork, we would expect a similar pattern of results as dynamic interaction patterns adapt to changing task demands (e.g. Stanton et al 2012), although recovery from a perturbation might not always be as swift.…”

“…electroencephalograms; Berka et al 2004;Hoover and Muth 2004;Berka et al 2005;Lalitha and Eswaran 2007), are promising. In large-scale, interpersonal tasks, adaptation in response to changing task demands is reflected in spontaneous shifts in communication patterns (Stanton et al 2012). In this article, we demonstrate a real-time dynamical analysis method that we developed to detect unexpected, critical events -perturbations -in the context of teamwork and communication.…”

Interruptions in the healthcare workplace: a sociotechnical systems approach

“…My initial investigation into the use of social network analysis techniques for interruptions research was inspired by the ability of social network models to emphasize both functional entities (work roles), and how those work roles are connected (Stanton et al, 2012 …”

“…Gephi was also used to run various statistical analyses on the network data, described in Table 3. These social network metrics are applied to individual roles as well as the overall network as a whole (Stanton et al, 2012) to help to uncover non-obvious features of the network, as well as support or reject conclusions based on the visualizations alone . The metrics lead to a better understanding of patterns of interaction across all roles in the ICU and make it easier to identify vulnerabilities in the work system.…”