Decision‐making behaviour during urban search and rescue: a case study of Germany

The objective of assisting with tasks and decisions during incident response is to reduce the risks to victims and rescue personnel while increasing the efficiency of the rescue operation. Handling uncertain information during urban search and rescue (USAR) missions represents additional stress to the decision‐maker. The aim of this study is to identify the decision‐making behaviour of rescuers during USAR missions to pinpoint trapped or buried victims in debris in order to design assistance technologies and decision‐support systems that meet their needs. In 2010, a survey was conducted among 10–15 per cent of all German rescue personnel specialised in search tasks. One of the major results of this survey is that a subjective assessment of the reliability of information available from heterogeneous sources influences the rescuers’ actions and that there is no methodology for decision‐making involving uncertain information. In addition, the study found that compliance with procedures does not require assistance.     

An extension of Lee and Mitchell's unfolding model of voluntary turnover

Lee and Mitchell ( 1994 ) proposed a decision process‐based voluntary turnover model, which identifies the psychological processes involved in the decision to quit a job. The current study tests and extends the Lee and Mitchell's ( 1994 ) unfolding model of voluntary turnover using a sample of voluntary ‘quitters’ and ‘stayers’. Survey and interview results from 84 practicing accountants suggest that the Lee and Mitchell's ( 1994 ) model does an excellent job of capturing employee decision process‐data in an accounting environment. Additional extension hypotheses pertaining to economic consequences and gender differences are also proposed and subsequently supported. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.