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Effects of Adaptive Behaviors and Shared Mental Models on Control Crew Performance

A. B. Freeman School of Business, Tulane University, 7 McAlister Drive, New Orleans, Louisiana 70118
Department of Business Administration, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, 1206 South Sixth Street, Champaign, Illinois 61820
College of Business Administration, Texas Tech University, P.O. Box 42101, Lubbock, Texas 79409-2101
mwaller1{at}tulane.edu
ngupta{at}uiuc.edu
rgiambatista{at}ba.ttu.edu

Control crews are highly trained teams responsible for monitoring complex systems, performing routine procedures, and quickly responding to nonroutine situations. Previous literature suggests that higher-performing control crews engage in adaptive behavior during high-workload or crisis situations. Other work suggests that higher-performing crews use periods of lower workloads to prepare for future problems. To understand which behaviors performed during which situations better differentiate lower- from higher-performing crews, we conducted a study of 14 nuclear power plant control room crews and examined adaptive behaviors and shared mental model development in the crews as they faced monitoring, routine, and nonroutine situations. Our results suggest that few differences in adaptive behaviors exist between higher- and lower-performing crews during monitoring or routine situations, but that information collection and shared mental model development activities, and intracrew processes used during model development, differ significantly between lower- and higher-performing control crews during nonroutine situations.

Key Words: group dynamics; teams; shared cognition; mental models; nuclear power
History: Received: March 1, 2001;