Decision-making in disaster operations - Intuition vs Intelligent System support

Abstract

The paper presents a study where human decision-making is benchmarked against IS recommendations in a disaster management context. Data collection was done in tabletop exercise sessions where the participants played the role of disaster managers, engaged on decisions scenarios of increasing complexity. Initially, participants were asked to make assignment decisions without any IS advice. Later they were exposed to the advice of the an IS to assess if participants accepted the solutions proposed by the IS as satisficing, considering the explanations provided by the IS. Results suggest that decision-makers tend to rely increasingly in intuition as complexity increases, and welcome the recommendations of IS as satisficing, considering the decision-making process easier with this type of support.