Building Situation Awareness and Team Cohesion through Effective Information Sharing in a Distributed Team-Based Command and Control Scenario

Abstract

Within complex command and control domains, where teams are often geographically distributed and heterogeneous in expertise, the formulation of a course of action depends upon effective information sharing between teammates. The communication and development of situation awareness (SA) may both depend upon and help foster trust and cohesion among teammates. However, distributed and heterogeneous environments present challenges for the development of trust and cohesion. This study investigated the relationship between information sharing, SA, trust, and team cohesion in a distributed team-based emergency management scenario. Participants played the role of humanitarian aid experts, public health experts, and migration and social services experts responding to a potential outbreak of cholera following a natural disaster. The results of exploratory analyses provide preliminary support for a complex relationship between effective information sharing, the convergence of higher-level SA, and the development of team cohesion, and propose a roadmap for further exploration of this rich dataset.