There are a number of studies which have studied the negative relationship
between information overload and quality of organizational-level decision-making
(Good 1958; Schroder et al. 1967). For example, in 1996 a survey of 1313 junior,
middle and senior managers in the UK, the USA, Australia, Hong Kong and
Singapore was performed, and it showed that 43% of managers think important
decisions are delayed due to information overload. The quality of decisions greatly
decreases when decisions are delayed because most of the decisions have to be made
at one particular moment in time. A delay in decision-making means a decrease in
the overall quality of the decisions. Information overload also causes the response
rate to decrease and the performance to degrade (Good 1958). There are also various
studies that stress the negative relationship between information overload and
organizational sustainability in terms of health conditions of employees. For example, Swar (Bawden and Robinson 2008; Kim et al. 2007; Misra and Stokols 2012;
Swar et al. 2017). This is because the information that is available to the person is
more than what can be managed by that person leading to coping strategies that are
not effective and greater than what the information seeker can manage effectively
leading to ineffective coping strategies and indications of psychological illness (Hall
and Walton 2004). This paper focuses on specific aspects of the decision-makers and
the information system that determine the perceived information overload.
2.2 Human Information Processing
When people make a decision, they process information. Decision-making is a
specific form of HIP. Therefore, we will use HIP frameworks as a guideline for
our research on the decision-maker. The information processing capacity of
decision-makers partly determines how much IO they experience. Rumelhart
(1977) distinguished five main stages of HIP: sensing, recognizing patterns, understanding language, remembering and reasoning. Sensing is defined as the point at
which fluctuations of energy in the environment are translated into fluctuations of
neural activity. The better a person is at sensing, the more fluctuations of energy can
be translated into fluctuations of neural activity. Recognizing patterns is the second
stage of HIP. Several pieces of data can be presented in different ways but they have
the same meaning. A person has to discover a pattern between these pieces of data.
The third stage is the understanding of language. The processing system combines
information from the sense organs with the knowledge of the language to determine
the interpretation of speech or written language. The fourth stage of HIP is remembering. The memory of an individual can best be compared to the memory of a
computer. The internal memory is easily accessible, whereas the external memory is
more difficult to access. In the human mind, the internal memory is the part of the
memory that is activated. It could be information that we have just received or
memory that we have just retrieved from our external memory. In this chapter the
focus lies on working memory. There are limits to how much information can be
activated at the same time. This differs from individual to individual. The most
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G. van de Kaa
between information overload and quality of organizational-level decision-making
(Good 1958; Schroder et al. 1967). For example, in 1996 a survey of 1313 junior,
middle and senior managers in the UK, the USA, Australia, Hong Kong and
Singapore was performed, and it showed that 43% of managers think important
decisions are delayed due to information overload. The quality of decisions greatly
decreases when decisions are delayed because most of the decisions have to be made
at one particular moment in time. A delay in decision-making means a decrease in
the overall quality of the decisions. Information overload also causes the response
rate to decrease and the performance to degrade (Good 1958). There are also various
studies that stress the negative relationship between information overload and
organizational sustainability in terms of health conditions of employees. For example, Swar (Bawden and Robinson 2008; Kim et al. 2007; Misra and Stokols 2012;
Swar et al. 2017). This is because the information that is available to the person is
more than what can be managed by that person leading to coping strategies that are
not effective and greater than what the information seeker can manage effectively
leading to ineffective coping strategies and indications of psychological illness (Hall
and Walton 2004). This paper focuses on specific aspects of the decision-makers and
the information system that determine the perceived information overload.
2.2 Human Information Processing
When people make a decision, they process information. Decision-making is a
specific form of HIP. Therefore, we will use HIP frameworks as a guideline for
our research on the decision-maker. The information processing capacity of
decision-makers partly determines how much IO they experience. Rumelhart
(1977) distinguished five main stages of HIP: sensing, recognizing patterns, understanding language, remembering and reasoning. Sensing is defined as the point at
which fluctuations of energy in the environment are translated into fluctuations of
neural activity. The better a person is at sensing, the more fluctuations of energy can
be translated into fluctuations of neural activity. Recognizing patterns is the second
stage of HIP. Several pieces of data can be presented in different ways but they have
the same meaning. A person has to discover a pattern between these pieces of data.
The third stage is the understanding of language. The processing system combines
information from the sense organs with the knowledge of the language to determine
the interpretation of speech or written language. The fourth stage of HIP is remembering. The memory of an individual can best be compared to the memory of a
computer. The internal memory is easily accessible, whereas the external memory is
more difficult to access. In the human mind, the internal memory is the part of the
memory that is activated. It could be information that we have just received or
memory that we have just retrieved from our external memory. In this chapter the
focus lies on working memory. There are limits to how much information can be
activated at the same time. This differs from individual to individual. The most
164
G. van de Kaa