Effective communication is critical to team performance but can be impacted by the distribution of team members. Distribution is increasingly found in high-risk environments where task complexity necessitates geographic and/or temporal separation of team members. Understanding the impact of distribution on communication is critical to ensuring effective team performance. We review the research examining communication in distributed teams in high-risk environments to provide an overview of the literature to date. Articles examining communication in distributed teams were analyzed in a systematic review following Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. Themes relevant to the research question were extracted from the studies using thematic analysis. Five themes were identified: updating shared mental models, effects of transmission lags, content of communication, communication protocols, and technological advances. The five themes identify directions for future research.

Interrelations between subsystems in control theories of self-regulation are frequently studied at the between- person level, despite being within-person phenomena. The current study models within-person variations of comparator, effector, and output subsystems through relationships in subjective workload, subjective effort, and objective performance on a complex decision-making task during stable and shifting task demands. Effects are examined at both immediate and downstream time points. Results provided mixed support for the proposed subsystem interrelationships, fully supporting the model during stable task demands, partially supporting it following an increase in task demands, but not supporting the model following a decrease in task demands. Results indicate dynamic within-person relationships between self-regulatory subsystem indicators and task performance, underscoring the importance of using longitudinal, multilevel approaches for disaggregating within-person and between-person components.

No abstract

Learning and adaptation are essential for success. However, human effort is inherently finite, which creates a dilemma for employees. Is it better to prioritize capitalizing on existing knowledge structures to maximize immediate performance benefits (exploitation) or develop adaptive capabilities (exploration) at the expense of short-term productivity? Understanding how employees answer this question can inform the design of evidence-based interventions for optimizing and sustaining learning amidst workplace challenges. In this article, we attempt to unpack the composition of on-task effort during performance-based learning by testing the proposition that the information-knowledge gap-a regulatory discrepancy between unknown aspects of a task and a person's perceived competence in dealing with that task-is the psychological mechanism responsible for guiding effort-allocation decisions during performance-based learning. In Study 1, we found that larger information-knowledge gaps resulted in increased subsequent investments of on-task attention within a sample of adults learning to perform a complex task (N = 121). As participants learned, information-knowledge gaps systematically shrank, resulting in a reduced emphasis on learning-oriented effort (i.e., exploration) relative to achievement-oriented effort (i.e., exploitation) over time. In Study 2 (N = 176), a task-change paradigm revealed that introducing novel demands caused information-knowledge gaps to suddenly expand, which prompted participants to increase on-task effort and shift their focus away from achievement and back toward learning as an adaptive response. Collectively, these findings support the notion that information-knowledge gaps shape how (and when) on-task effort is spent and present a framework for understanding how learners strategically structure their limited attentional resources.