Improving Decisions: Conceptualising the Antecedents and Impact of Unique Opinion Expression

To confront the complex, unpredictable and dynamic scenarios of contemporary and future warfare, the Australian Defence Force
recognises the requirement for its operational headquarters to achieve Agile Command and Control. Our investigation aims to
increase our understanding between the relationship of team dynamics, unique opinion expression (dissent) and decision quality
within inter-connected, complex teams in operational headquarters. Our conceptual model integrates social and organisational
psychological theory and superordinates various constructs into three categories of disparity, culture and composition. We posit that
a fairer distribution of power and resources (disparity), more varied teams (composition) and feedback-seeking environments
(culture) increase a team member’s willingness to express unique opinions. More unique opinion expression within military teams
will ultimately benefit decision quality by lowering harmful cognitive constructs such as information cascades, group polarisation
and shared information bias. We contribute a novel, psychological model of how team dynamics impact decisions within operational
headquarters through unique opinion expression. The current paper is part of a multi-phasic project to measure, evaluate and
provide advice to operational headquarters on beneficial and harmful team dynamics. Through identification and intervention of
helpful or harmful team dynamics, research can enhance decision quality within operational headquarters and close the gap between
current capabilities and contemporary and future warfare requirements. The theoretical and practical implications of the conceptual
model are discussed.