Trusts, Collaboration, Being and Situation Awareness within [enabled] Networks

Within a network enabled environment, collaboration between humans is key for making and so taking decisions. Increasingly, decision makers have to rely on information provided by other actors within highly dynamic and distributed networks of varying size and scales. To undertake this examination this paper posits the idea of different ‘Networks-in-Being’ with varying individual and collective characteristics. [Social] networks are considered to facilitate information exchange between actors. At the same time, networks failing to provide necessary information in combination with a high level of trust can hinder effective communication and collaboration. Different combinations of trust and likelihood may therefore improve or impair the likelihood of information flow, transfer and subsequent action (cause and effect). This paper investigates how analysing different types of networkstructures-in-being can support collaboration and decision-making / taking by using a ‘fuzzier’ change prediction method as a way of scoping information propagation between actors within a network.