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This chapter applies the concept of ecological rationality to the context of groups and teams. A summary of agent-based computer simulations is provided in which groups integrated member opinions on the basis of a majority rule. The simulations demonstrate that the performance of a group may be strongly affected by the decision strategies used by its individual members, and specify how this effect is moderated by environmental features. Group performance strongly depended on the distribution of cue validities. When validities were linearly distributed, groups using a compensatory strategy achieved the highest accuracy. Conversely, when cue validities followed a J-shaped distribution, groups using a simple noncompensatory heuristic performed best. While these effects were robust across different quantities of shared information, the validity of shared information exerted stronger effects on group performance. Consequences for prescriptive theories of group decision making are discussed.

This chapter begins with an overview of the policy of Maritime Domain Awareness as applied in different states. From this basis, legal rules relating to intelligence gathering in different maritime zones are examined in the second part. The third part of the chapter looks at some specific initiatives under international law designed to enhance a state's knowledge about who is operating and what is happening at sea. Seafarers identification and the Long Range Identification and Tracking Regulation of the IMO are considered in this regard. The fourth part considers how information sharing has featured in various law enforcement efforts in response to maritime security threats. These analyses show that while an inclusive interest in improving information collection and sharing has prompted a range of legal initiatives, there is still a greater accommodation of exclusive interests and this emphasis has hampered the full effectiveness of these developments.

In today's world of business and politics, collaboration is a common and valued practice. A group's potential to outperform individual decision makers is especially apparent if the knowledge of the members of a team or committee is distributed such that each member typically favors an inferior option at the outset. This biased information distribution is called a hidden profile because the full information about the options (i.e., their profile) is initially hidden from every individual group member. Previous research indicated that groups have difficulties mastering the challenge of communicating and integrating unique information held by single group members. As a consequence, groups are typically not able to decide in favor of the best option when its profile is hidden. The chapter summarizes the results of simulation studies in which various decision strategies that a group may apply with respect to their ability to solve hidden-profile problems were compared. Specifically, the chapter describes the conditions under which compensatory strategies outperform simple heuristics, and vice versa. The chapter then reviews two experiments that focus on participants' performance as a function of how information is distributed within the group. Groups can solve hidden-profile problems if (a) group members enter discussions without preconceived opinions (naïve groups), and (b) information regarding the choice alternatives is presented in the form of common cues, which facilitates the application of a cue-based heuristic. The simulation studies and experiments support the notion of ecological rationality: The performance of strategies and of participants was affected by information structures of the environment, in particular, by the skewness of cue validities and by the distribution of cue values across group members.

Over the past few years, nations around the world have reeled from a series of catastrophic failures of institutional trustworthiness. As a consequence of these failures, public confidence and trust in such institutions have plummeted, leaving lingering residues of disappointment and disillusion. What causes such institutional trust failures? Why do institutions fail to fulfill the trust that is conferred on them and what, if anything, can we learn from such failures in order to avoid repeating them in the future? A primary aim of this chapter is to examine these questions. As an organizing framework or lens, I approach these questions from the vantage point of recent social psychological research on judgment and decision making in organizational contexts. Insights from such research, I argue, can inform our understanding of why institutions--despite the good intentions and earnest efforts of those who labor within them--sometimes fail to achieve the levels of trustworthy performance expected of them. A central argument advanced in this paper is that we can understand institutional trust failures as arising from a series of psychological, social, and organizational dynamics which, in concert, impede effective cooperation and coordination among interdependent decision makers. To illustrate these arguments, I examine the myriad failures of U. S. intelligence agencies to discover and preempt the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on American soil. Implications of this analysis for other organizations and institutions are elaborated.

The chapter illustrates the severity of public sector information sharing failures with five tragic events where information sharing failure was decisive: the Challenger Space Shuttle explosion; the 9/11 terror attacks; Hurricane Katrina; the 2010 Haiti earthquake; and the 2011 Fukushima nuclear power plant accident. The chapter defines public agencies as big data owners and shows that the volume of big data processed and stored in the public sector far surpasses that of the private sector. The chapter then describes the massive cost of public sector information sharing failures in terms of wasted funds, lives lost, fraud, low data quality, and ineffective governance.

The chapter examines the three key approaches to improve public sector information sharing that dominate both literature and legislation: coerce, consent, and coax. A case study of the coerce-approach Homeland Security Information Network (HSIN) program shows this approach’s limitations. Three coax-approach case studies illustrate this approach’s strengths and shortcomings (a consent-approach case study is examined in chapter 3). It is concluded that, whilst each approach has advantages, not one of the approaches has satisfactorily dealt with the problem of public sector information sharing failures. A novel approach is introduced that proposes the use of selective incentives to nudge agencies to exchange information.

This chapter offers a window onto the fast-changing world of interagency information sharing in the ‘Joint Future’ of health and social services. Government has taken up the challenge to raise service standards right across the spectrum of service type and client need, and in this the effective sharing of relevant personal information about individuals is seen as critical. While the need for better information sharing is undoubtedly one of the key themes to emerge from inquiries into service failures over the past 30 years or more, the range of practical solutions potentially available has lately been revolutionised by the new, unprecedentedly powerful information technologies. What emerges therefore is a picture of pell mell change as government, agencies, professional bodies, and practitioners constantly struggle to adopt new legislation and develop new information systems, tools, and protocols, some of which seem destined for obsolescence almost before the website proclaiming them has been published.

The chapter explains the concept of a Public Sector Information Exchange (PSIE). It then presents a detailed case study of a supply-chain PSIE model: the Australian CrimTrac program that was established to streamline information sharing among Australian police organizations. The chapter then explores the potential for an exchange PSIE model to be implemented in a US public sector agency in the environmental domain. Economic, legal and technical challenges to an exchange-model PSIE are outlined in detail. A case study of the deNovis project shows how semantic interoperability challenges could be overcome.

This chapter investigates several factors influencing the grounding of information in a corpus of direction-giving dialogues. Various types of feedback are observed, involving different lexical cues, different local dialogic contexts, and three kinds of spatial expressions (motion descriptions, introductions of landmarks, and descriptions of landmarks).

This chapter draws on a range of policy and legal developments and research to discuss issues of communication and information sharing in child welfare and protection. The research includes a survey of the majority of Scottish local authorities and interviews with a total of 25 social work informants drawn from three local authorities. The study explores risk assessment and interagency collaboration in the use of child protection orders by Scottish local authorities. Child protection orders allow, among other things, for a child to be removed to or retained in a place of safety if there is the presence or risk of significant harm. Changing policy and practice, bringing a greater emphasis on integration in the delivery of children's services, is outlined with reference to Scotland and England. Mandatory reporting laws are examined, and the role of technical systems to promote information sharing and their potential to extend the surveillance and monitoring of children and families are considered.

The chapter acknowledges that information assets are a precious resource for government agencies and maps existing data trade patterns in the US public sector. US agencies trade in three types of information products (primary data, secondary information products, and information services) using four data trade payment mechanisms. Examples of public sector data trade outside the US are also examined. The limits and costs of the US public sector’s current bilateral data sharing arrangements are outlined. The potential of multilateral incentives-driven information sharing is shown through a case study of the Australian Public Sector Mapping Agencies (PSMA) organization.

This chapter examines the glue that held the Julfan settlements and the trade network together. It considers the circulation of what was arguably the most important commodity throughout the Julfan network: information. It offers the first scholarly treatment of the art of Julfan business correspondence by examining thousands of business and family letters written by Julfan merchants in their unique dialect of mercantile Armenian. In addition to analyzing the stylistic properties of Julfan correspondence and assessing the economic function of letter writing and information sharing, the chapter also looks at the role of correspondence in helping create an “imagined community” of merchants who were scattered in different parts of the world. finally, it addresses the role of Julfan courier networks, which acted as a private order postal system and delivered information and news to Julfan merchants and their families, thus gluing merchants in different settlements together and the settlements to their “nodal center” in New Julfa.

This chapter explores conceptual frameworks for sharing information in the world of children's services. It first sketches the longstanding policy emphasis on person- or child-centred services and its recent critique. Next, some of the substantial volume of recent consultation with children and young people about the use of their personal information is briefly discussed. The chapter asks whether current approaches offer a sustainable framework for the near future. The ‘privacy pragmatism’ approach first propounded in the Cabinet Office report on information sharing is considered as a potential theoretical prop, together with ‘personal learning planning’ as a potential fulcrum, for the bridge-building that is necessary if information sharing practice is to take account of rapidly developing trends in the lived experiences of children and young people. Reframing our consideration of this issue provides an opportunity to build towards a sustainable set of social relationships between people, their personal data, and its public custodians.

This chapter continues the discussion in the previous chapter focusing on the puzzles related to the consumer loan side of the credit card--information asymmetry, information sharing and market origination and expansion. It concludes with a short account of how each was solved in the American payment card market and presents a brief preview of solutions used in the postcommunist countries.

The idea of ‘joined-up’ services enabled through better sharing of information and new forms of multi-agency working is at the heart of attempts to transform service delivery through digital means. In this chapter we examine the issues involved in two areas of service innovation—joint working in children’s services and the sharing of health information across organizational boundaries. The expectation is that making information available in an integrated digital form will improve and enhance information sharing between service providers and between providers and service users. However, our research on the problems that arise in attempts to digitize information through on-line service directories and electronic records raises further questions concerning the assumption that ‘more integration’ is the key to better multi-agency working and the delivery of more joined-up services.

This chapter recontextualizes the discussions of privacy in, and of, information systems by using the related concepts of secrets and lies to examine how people interpret, value, and understand flows and exchanges of information. How do we want to think about the ways in which people report location to others, for example? How does an examination of the maintenance and enactment of social relations in everyday life help us reevaluate the technological notion that “information wants to be free”—a notion which looks quite different when we think about Western scientific data, axial religious practices, or even the secret sharing of North American teens? What emerges is a focus on the practices of articulating and sharing information as a means of cultural production, a way in which people engage in meaningful social interaction and the negotiation of collective meaning.

This chapter considers the issues affecting the ownership and use of personal data about people with learning disabilities, which highlight the contradictory imperatives in policies that seek to protect the interests of vulnerable adults while at the same time promoting their rights as citizens. Such contradictions create dilemmas for practitioners who may be unsure about what is the ethical or lawful approach in obtaining consent; sharing information; using potentially intrusive technology albeit for benign intent; or undertaking research with people with profound disabilities, whose needs we are least well informed about. This makes it highly unlikely, particularly in the present risk-averse climate of service organisations, that there will be any enthusiasm for taking the additional risk of sharing information across professional and agency boundaries. These ambiguities could be reduced if there were a much stronger commitment to share information with the vulnerable person and the data collected were clearly restricted to ensuring the well-being of that individual.

Desire to improve lending information and reduce risk costs has given rise to credit reporting agencies, colloquially known as credit bureaus. Borrowers have an incentive to disguise their relative risk (if it is high) or to signal it (if it is low). This chapter examines first the conceptual rationale for the emergence of information sharing across lenders and then the foundation for a credit reporting industry. Next, the discussion focuses on the particular variety of credit reporting and its domestic regulation under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Availability of information files has led directly to a wide array of innovative, data-based decision tools and credit scoring products now available to assist lenders. The chapter then examines the resulting benefits to consumers, creditors, and the economy. The system is not without flaws, and the chapter also reviews currently available evidence on the accuracy and quality of credit reports.

A joined up response is necessary to respond to the challenges of food crime. With the increasingly globalised food system, sharing of information between different regulatory and law enforcement bodies is necessary. One method of ensuring information sharing is through the construction of regulatory networks. This chapter examines different methods for constructing regulatory networks, with a particular focus on the EU. It considers both the advantages and disadvantages of networks in responding to breaches of food law, and considers four case studies; the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed; the Food Fraud Network; Co-ordinated Control Plans; and the Opson Operations. The chapter argues that, despite their weaknesses, regulatory networks are essential in dealing with modern food crimes and harms.