Strategic and Managerial Decision-Making for Sustainable Management: Factors and Remedies for Information Overload

Abstract

In the past century, the amount of information that is generated has increased at an exponential rate. As a result of this information saturation process or ‘information overload’, people cannot keep pace with the information flowing towards them. Organizations can take steps towards sustainability by improving the health conditions in their organizations and the products they offer. One way to do so is by trying to reduce information overload. Besides improving health conditions, decreasing information overload also positively affects the quality of organizational-level decision-making. This is a conceptual chapter in which propositions are built. The determinants of information overload and the effect on decision quality are described, and an extensive literature review is conducted. The chapter draws from decision theory and the theory of human information processing and focuses on the individual characteristics of decision-makers and the quality of the information provided by the information system. Seven propositions are formulated and several remedies for information overload are discussed. The chapter arrives at two determinants of an individual’s degree of information overload experienced (characteristics of the decision-maker and the information system), and it is argued that information overload has a negative influence on the quality of decisions. These concepts are combined in one model. The conceptual model is an attempt to provide a better theoretical understanding of the concept of information overload. Finally, contributions, limitations and areas for future research are discussed.KeywordsInformation overloadSustainabilityHealth conditionsDecision quality