Olivia Brown
Lecturer, University of Bath
Dr Olivia Brown is a lecturer at the University of Bath. She is interested in how intra- and inter-group processes influence individual and group behaviour.
Olivia holds as BSc in Psychology from the University of Liverpool. Following this, she completed an MSc in Investigative and Forensic Psychology, also at the University of Liverpool, with a special focus on creativity and terrorism.
Her postgraduate research focused on understanding the antecedents to group cohesion, with an emphasis on researching group decision-making in extreme environments. Olivia’s other interests include inter-group conflict, radicalisation and developing effective counter-terrorism strategies. Olivia was supervised by Dr. Nicola Power (Lancaster) and Dr. Emma Barrett (Lancaster Research Fellow).
CREST Outputs
Articles
Academic Publications
Communication and coordination across event phases: A multi-team system emergency response
This paper explores how multi-agency response teams communicate and coordinate in different phases of a simulated terrorist incident. Procedural guidelines state that responders should coordinate their response to a major emergency across two phases: ‘response’ (when the incident is ongoing) and ‘recovery’ (when the threat has subsided, but the legacy of the incident is ongoing). However, no research has examined whether these phases map to the behaviours of responders in situ. To address this, we used measures of communication and coordination to examine how behaviours evolved during a simulated terrorist incident in the United Kingdom. We grounded our approach within the theoretical literature on multi-team systems. It was found that the current response/recovery classification does not fit the nuanced context of an emergency. Instead, a three-phase structure of ‘response/resolve/recovery’ is more reflective of behaviour. It was also found that coordination between agencies improved when communication networks became less centralized. This suggests that collaborative working in multi-team systems may be improved by adopting decentralized communication networks.
(From the journal abstract)
Brown, O., Power, N. and Conchie, S.M. (2021), Communication and coordination across event phases: A multi-team system emergency response. J Occup Organ Psychol.
https://doi.org/10.1111/joop.12349Immersive simulations with extreme teams
Extreme teams (ETs) work in challenging, high pressured contexts, where poor performance can have severe consequences. These teams must coordinate their skill sets, align their goals, and develop shared awareness, all under stressful conditions. How best to research these teams poses unique challenges as researchers seek to provide applied recommendations while conducting rigorous research to test how teamwork models work in practice. In this article, we identify immersive simulations as one solution to this, outlining their advantages over existing methodologies and suggesting how researchers can best make use of recent advances in technology and analytical techniques when designing simulation studies. We conclude that immersive simulations are key to ensuring ecological validity and empirically reliable research with ETs.
(From the journal abstract)
Brown, O., Power, N., & Conchie, S. M. (2020). Immersive simulations with extreme teams. Organizational Psychology Review, 10(3–4), 115–135.
https://doi.org/10.1177/2041386620926037
Articles
Academic Publications
Communication and coordination across event phases: A multi-team system emergency response
This paper explores how multi-agency response teams communicate and coordinate in different phases of a simulated terrorist incident. Procedural guidelines state that responders should coordinate their response to a major emergency across two phases: ‘response’ (when the incident is ongoing) and ‘recovery’ (when the threat has subsided, but the legacy of the incident is ongoing). However, no research has examined whether these phases map to the behaviours of responders in situ. To address this, we used measures of communication and coordination to examine how behaviours evolved during a simulated terrorist incident in the United Kingdom. We grounded our approach within the theoretical literature on multi-team systems. It was found that the current response/recovery classification does not fit the nuanced context of an emergency. Instead, a three-phase structure of ‘response/resolve/recovery’ is more reflective of behaviour. It was also found that coordination between agencies improved when communication networks became less centralized. This suggests that collaborative working in multi-team systems may be improved by adopting decentralized communication networks.
(From the journal abstract)
Brown, O., Power, N. and Conchie, S.M. (2021), Communication and coordination across event phases: A multi-team system emergency response. J Occup Organ Psychol.
Immersive simulations with extreme teams
Extreme teams (ETs) work in challenging, high pressured contexts, where poor performance can have severe consequences. These teams must coordinate their skill sets, align their goals, and develop shared awareness, all under stressful conditions. How best to research these teams poses unique challenges as researchers seek to provide applied recommendations while conducting rigorous research to test how teamwork models work in practice. In this article, we identify immersive simulations as one solution to this, outlining their advantages over existing methodologies and suggesting how researchers can best make use of recent advances in technology and analytical techniques when designing simulation studies. We conclude that immersive simulations are key to ensuring ecological validity and empirically reliable research with ETs.
(From the journal abstract)
Brown, O., Power, N., & Conchie, S. M. (2020). Immersive simulations with extreme teams. Organizational Psychology Review, 10(3–4), 115–135.