Effects of introducing collaborative technology on communications in a distributed safety-critical system

Communication and collaborative decision-making are critical activities in safety-critical systems such as marine transportation. As a result, new group technologies have been introduced to enhance communication and decision-making in these settings. Unfortunately, little research examining the impact of these new collaborative technologies has been undertaken, and most of it has been undertaken in laboratory environments, rather than in operational or safety-critical settings. Two primary differences of the operational setting in this study suggest that results may differ from studies undertaken in laboratory environments: (1) the system has a strong hierarchical organization and culture with clearly defined roles and (2) roles in the system are associated with different information access privileges. This paper explores the impact of introducing new technology on communication and collaboration between dispersed decision-making groups in marine transportation, and focuses on the differences in results observed in this operational setting.