Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of organizational factors on individual decision-making under conditions of uncertainty and time pressure. A method to assess the impact of individual and organizational factors on individual decisions is proposed and experimented in the context of triage decision-making process. Design/methodology/approach The adopted methodology is based on the bias-variance decomposition formula. The method, usually applied to assess the predictive accuracy of heuristics, has been adjusted to discriminate between the impact of organizational and individual factors affecting heuristic processes. To test the methodology, 25 clinical scenarios have been designed and submitted, through simulations, to the triage nurses of two Spanish hospitals. Findings Nurses’ decisions are affected by organizational factors in certain task conditions, such as situations characterized by complete and coherent information. When relevant information is lacking and available information is not coherent, decision-makers base their assessments on their personal experience and gut feeling. Research limitations/implications Discriminating between the influence of organizational factors and individual ones is the starting point for a more in-depth understanding of how organization can guide the decision process. Using simulations of clinical scenarios in field research does not allow for capturing the influence of some contextual factors, such as the nurses’ stress levels, on individual decisions. This issue will be addressed in further research. Practical implications Bias and variance are useful measurements for detecting process improvement actions. A bias prevalence requires a re-design of organizational settings, whereas training would be preferred when variance prevails. Originality/value The main contribution of this work concerns the novel interpretation of bias and variance concepts to assess organizational factors’ influence on heuristic decision-making processes, taking into account the level of complexity of decision-related tasks.

中文翻译：

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组织因素对启发式法的重要性

目的本文的目的是研究在不确定性和时间压力条件下组织因素对个人决策的影响。提出了一种评估个人和组织因素对个人决策影响的方法，并在分类决策过程中进行了试验。设计/方法/方法所采用的方法基于偏差方差分解公式。通常用于评估启发式方法的预测准确性的方法已进行了调整，以区分影响启发式过程的组织因素和个人因素的影响。为了测试该方法，已设计了25种临床方案，并通过模拟将其提交给两家西班牙医院的分诊护士。调查结果护士的决定在某些任务条件下会受到组织因素的影响，例如，具有完整而连贯信息的情况。当缺乏相关信息且可用信息不一致时，决策者将根据他们的个人经验和直觉来进行评估。研究的局限性/含义区分组织因素和个人因素的影响是更深入地了解组织如何指导决策过程的起点。在现场研究中使用临床情景模拟无法捕获某些情境因素（如护士的压力水平）对个人决策的影响。这个问题将在进一步的研究中解决。实际含义偏差和方差是检测过程改进措施的有用度量。偏见患病率需要重新设计组织机构，而当差异普遍存在时，最好进行培训。原创性/价值这项工作的主要贡献涉及对偏见和方差概念的新颖解释，以评估组织因素对启发式决策过程的影响，同时考虑与决策相关的任务的复杂性。