Partners' Credibility Development and Assessment in Distributed Decision Making

This study illustrates how partners develop and assess credibility in distributed decision making. Credibility is the level of confidence attributed to the information brought in decision making by the individual partners. It depends on whether and how much the partners agree regarding a common background of values and preferences. This background is reached through a process of communication and negotiation on preferences and values which precedes profitability evaluation of the available alternatives in decision making. This study will report on an discuss the process by which credibility has been built up and assessed among the operators involved in managing a hot strip mill where a newly implemented automation forces them to modify the previously adopted priorities and the distributed decision-making rules and goals.