"Heightened Mindfulness" in Government Decision Makers: Antecedents and Consequents During Crisis Management in the Emerging Interactive Information Environment

Mindfulness in decision makers has important implications for public leadership. A more nuanced understanding of mindfulness emerges from our grounded research into three national-level crises in the emerging interactive information environment, faced by the Indian government, wherein, the media, stakeholders and the interactive information environment combined to bring the visibility factor to fore, influencing significant aspects of individual, group, organisational and societal sensemaking, framing, cognition, and behavioural responses, amidst ongoing interactions. The research led to identification of a micro-level framework, comprising the antecedents and consequents of the occurrence of “heightened mindfulness” in decision makers in the emerging interactive information environment; leading to a better understanding of the process of influence of the ongoing interactions in the emerging information environment on decision making and crisis management. This “heightened mindfulness” in decision makers and its influence on crisis decision making, in turn, are particularly significant because of their wider organisational and societal implications. The research findings and the proposed framework of crisis decision making have important implications for governments and public leadership in their decision making effectiveness during similar crises.