MODELING TEAM PROCESSES - ISSUES AND A SPECIFIC EXAMPLE

This paper develops a perspective to modeling team processes by drawin g on concepts from team theory, and the informational processing and o rganizational paradigms. In such a perspective, humans and their inter actions in a team are modeled as objects in a computerized environment . The behavior of the objects are specified in terms of the executable programs. A simulation testbed is described. Various information stru ctures for team decision making in an example financial domain are exa mined. Questions regarding the relationship between information struct ure (who (knows) what, when, and how (the information is used)) and te am performance are studied for the example. Thus this study can be see n as a step in the translation of behavioral and normative viewpoints of team decision making into a computational framework. The results in dicate that there are complex relationships between information struct ure and team performance. The conventional wisdom relating improved pe rformance to more information is not always true. The experiments demo nstrate several situations of team interaction where more information can lead to dysfunctional effects.