Information Seeking and Collaborative Decision-Making Behaviour in Consultancy Project Teams: A Network Theoretic Viewpoint

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dr. Sulafa Badi ◽  
Hanxiao ji ◽  
Professor Edward Ochieng
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Information Seeking ◽  
Project Teams ◽  
Collaborative Decision Making ◽  
Collaborative Decision

Information seeking and collaborative decision-making behaviour in consultancy project teams: a network theoretic viewpoint

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sulafa Badi ◽  
Hanxiao Ji ◽  
Edward G. Ochieng
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Network ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Information Seeking ◽  
Social Network Theory ◽  
Project Delivery ◽  
Collaborative Decision Making ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Collaborative Decision

PurposeThis study aims to examine how embeddedness influences consultants' information seeking when making decisions within a social network of relationships, and how these social networks evolve throughout the project delivery stages. The study is grounded in social network theory and examines embeddedness from three perspectives: structural (network cohesion), relational (tie strength in terms of friendship and knowledge awareness) and actor prominence.Design/methodology/approachA social network analysis (SNA) questionnaire was administered to a team of consultants working on a management consultancy project in Shanghai, China. The SNA measures of density, degree centrality and betweenness centrality were used to analyse relationship patterns among project team members, permitting comparison between the networks. Networks were also compared across the three project delivery stages of collect, consider and create.FindingsStructural embeddedness was observed in the active information seeking behaviour among consultancy team members. The moderate network density of the self-organising information seeking networks across the project delivery stages ensures that the team remains connected but avoids information redundancy and overload. Relational embeddedness was evident through the multiplexity of ties among team members with overlapping friendship and information seeking relationships. The knowledge awareness network's sparseness indicates a team of autonomous knowledge workers with distributed expertise. Project managers were the most prominent actors across the three project delivery stages, underlining these actors' relational leadership role.Practical implicationsThe study provides a deeper understanding of collaborative decision-making behaviours in dynamic-project environments. Limited attempts have been made to visualise and analyse the relationships involved in small consulting teams. The novelty of the network approach adopted stems from its ability to offer a structural view of the relationship among consultants, thus offering a distinctive and arguably more complete picture of consultancy team dynamics.Originality/valueThe study validates the social network theory of embeddedness in a real-world collaborative decision-making setting and provides a deeper understanding of information seeking behaviours for decision-making in dynamic-project environments. From a project management process viewpoint, the evolving nature of the information seeking network as it changes across the project stages with associated actors' roles was also visualised graphically, offering a distinctive and arguably more complete picture of consultancy team dynamics.

scholarly journals Multiobjective Optimization Model for Collaborative En-Route and Slot Allocation

2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Shangwen Yang ◽  
Jingting Zhang ◽  
Ping Chen ◽  
Yongjie Yan
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Traffic Control ◽  
Programming Model ◽  
Numerical Test ◽  
Simulated Data ◽  
Slot Allocation ◽  
Collaborative Decision Making ◽  
Average Delay ◽  
Flight Delay ◽  
Collaborative Decision

To allocate the en-routes and slots resource to the flights with collaborative decision-making, a multiobjective 0-1 integer programming model was proposed. According to different demands from air traffic control departments, airlines, and passengers, efficiency, equity, and effectiveness principles of collaborative decision-making were considered. With the aim to minimize the total flight delay costs, the total number of turning points, and average delay time of passengers, the effectiveness constraints were achieved. The algorithm was designed to solve the model on the basis of the objective method, and Lingo11 and MatlabR2007b were applied in numerical tests. To test how well the model works in real world, a numerical test was performed based on the simulated data of a civil en-route. Test results show that, compared with the traditional strategy of first come first served, the model gains better effect. The superiority of the model was verified.

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