Managing a Supply Chain: What Communication Patterns Might Divulge about Information Availability and Team Performance

Abstract

Teamwork is continually becoming more diverse and complex, with teams facing distributed and asynchronous collaborative situations. The crux of making these complex situations work successfully is the ability to convey useful information to those who need it when they need it. A fundamental question remains: how much information is enough? Decision makers need a certain level of information to make effective decisions; however, too much information can be overwhelming or even detrimental. The present study uses a modified supply chain simulation to examine the impact of information availability on overall team performance and communication. Information view and communication were manipulated to constrain information availability. The results are discussed in terms of the impact of information availability on overall performance, communication patterns, information entropy, and situation awareness of distributed teams.