important difficulty in remembering is the problem of retrieval difficulty and not the
problem of information loss. Because the secondary memory is well structured,
information can easily be retrieved from it. The last stage of HIP is reasoning.
Rumelhart (1977) uses the term reasoning to denote ‘those processes of information
retrieval that rely for success on the structure, as opposed to the content, of organised
memory’.
The working memory and the attention capacity of an individual play an important role in the processing of information. We assume these two cognitive characteristics partly determine whether a decision-maker experiences IO. Basically, HIP is
about accepting input in the form of information and producing output in the form of
decisions. When the human capacity for processing information is surpassed, IO can
occur. The capacity to accept input and produce outputs is determined by the
decision-maker’s cognitive and personality characteristics.
2.3 Decision-Maker’s Cognitive Characteristics
Cognitive characteristics refer to the characteristics of the decision-maker which are
connected with the human brain and in a way determined by nature. The focus lies
on two concepts which are related to the cognitive characteristics of the decisionmaker: working memory and attention capacity.
Working memory is that part of the memory that keeps information active while
we are using it or until we use it (Just and Carpenter 1992). The better a person is at
comprehension, the better his/her working memory is. When the person is good at
comprehending difficult tasks, this person can distinguish irrelevant information
from relevant information better than people who are worse at comprehending
difficult tasks. The faster memory is retrieved from the working memory, the faster
new information can be put in working memory. This means the better the working
memory of an individual, the more information he/she can process in a given time,
and thus the less IO he/she will perceive.
Proposition 1 The more working memory a person has, the less information
overload he/she will perceive positively affecting organizational health.
According to Conway and Engle (1996), working memory is greatly linked to the
attention capacity of an individual which can be defined, according to cognitive
psychologists, as the ability to concentrate. The limitations of human attention
represent one of the bottlenecks in HIP. The concept becomes necessary because
we do not process all stimuli that impinge upon us. We often neglect to attend to
stimuli because we are distracted. People have so many tasks to perform that some of
the tasks are neglected. Attentional resources can be thought of as a pool from which
all tasks and mental activities are drawn. One important property of attentional
resources is the fact that these resources are limited. The fact that they are limited
means they have to be divided among different tasks on which one is working. When
a decision-maker has a high attention capacity, he/she can divide more attention, and
9 Strategic and Managerial Decision-Making for Sustainable Management: Factors. . .
165
problem of information loss. Because the secondary memory is well structured,
information can easily be retrieved from it. The last stage of HIP is reasoning.
Rumelhart (1977) uses the term reasoning to denote ‘those processes of information
retrieval that rely for success on the structure, as opposed to the content, of organised
memory’.
The working memory and the attention capacity of an individual play an important role in the processing of information. We assume these two cognitive characteristics partly determine whether a decision-maker experiences IO. Basically, HIP is
about accepting input in the form of information and producing output in the form of
decisions. When the human capacity for processing information is surpassed, IO can
occur. The capacity to accept input and produce outputs is determined by the
decision-maker’s cognitive and personality characteristics.
2.3 Decision-Maker’s Cognitive Characteristics
Cognitive characteristics refer to the characteristics of the decision-maker which are
connected with the human brain and in a way determined by nature. The focus lies
on two concepts which are related to the cognitive characteristics of the decisionmaker: working memory and attention capacity.
Working memory is that part of the memory that keeps information active while
we are using it or until we use it (Just and Carpenter 1992). The better a person is at
comprehension, the better his/her working memory is. When the person is good at
comprehending difficult tasks, this person can distinguish irrelevant information
from relevant information better than people who are worse at comprehending
difficult tasks. The faster memory is retrieved from the working memory, the faster
new information can be put in working memory. This means the better the working
memory of an individual, the more information he/she can process in a given time,
and thus the less IO he/she will perceive.
Proposition 1 The more working memory a person has, the less information
overload he/she will perceive positively affecting organizational health.
According to Conway and Engle (1996), working memory is greatly linked to the
attention capacity of an individual which can be defined, according to cognitive
psychologists, as the ability to concentrate. The limitations of human attention
represent one of the bottlenecks in HIP. The concept becomes necessary because
we do not process all stimuli that impinge upon us. We often neglect to attend to
stimuli because we are distracted. People have so many tasks to perform that some of
the tasks are neglected. Attentional resources can be thought of as a pool from which
all tasks and mental activities are drawn. One important property of attentional
resources is the fact that these resources are limited. The fact that they are limited
means they have to be divided among different tasks on which one is working. When
a decision-maker has a high attention capacity, he/she can divide more attention, and
9 Strategic and Managerial Decision-Making for Sustainable Management: Factors. . .
165