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

Abstract

This article presents the rationale behind an important enhancement to a socio-technical model of organisations and teams derived from military research. It combines this with empirical results which take advantage of these enhancements. In Part 1, a new theoretical legacy for the model is developed based on Ergonomics theories and insights. This allows team communications data to be plotted into the model and for it to demonstrate discriminate validity between alternative team structures. Part 2 presents multinational data from the Experimental Laboratory for Investigating Collaboration, Information-sharing, and Trust (ELICIT) community. It was surprising to see that teams in both traditional hierarchical command and control and networked ‘peer-to-peer’ organisations operate in broadly the same area of the model, a region occupied by networks of communication exhibiting ‘small world’ properties. Small world networks may be of considerable importance for the Ergonomics analysis of team organisation and performance.

Practitioner Summary: 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.

Keywords:

• command and control
• organisation structure
• networks
• agility

Acknowledgements

This work from the Human Factors Integration Defence Technology Centre was part-funded by the Human Sciences Domain of the UK Ministry of Defence Scientific Research Programme. We are grateful to both Mary Ruddy of Parity Inc and Danielle Wynn of Ebrinc for their help and support with the data files and the developments in the log analyser. Last, but certainly not least, we are also very grateful to ELICIT user group community for making their data available for analysis. Without them, this international study would not have been possible.