IntroductionIn modern organizations, teams are an essential component in providing higher manpower (Huckman and Staats, 2013), have the capacity to engage problems from multiple angles (Zeilstra, 2003) and at times allowing also for democratized decision making processes (Gradstein et al., 1990;Coopman, 2001). The levels of productivity amongst teams can differ for a multitude of reasons (Sengupta and Jacobs, 2004) to include being more flexible in their decision making (Christensen and Knudsen, 2008). The environment in which a team resides and how it is structured plays a crucial role in the team's performance and ability to engage in problem solving (Heckscher and Donnellon 1994;Tongo and Curseu, 2015;Fraser and Hvolby, 2010). Therefore, developing an understanding of how teams can be structured in order to exploit team dynamics and enhance problem solving across team members is important for managers.Additionally, understanding team structures and team dynamics helps to improve corporate performance. In rigidly structured organizations, teams tend to mirror the organizations' inflexibility (Coopman, 2001). Whereas in less rigidly structured organizations, teams tend to be less formalized (March, 1991;Coopman, 2001). Consequently, managers forming teams need to understand what type of working environment will maximize team performance and problem solving.Traditionally, management has accepted order (used synonymously with control and rigid organization structure) as a necessary condition for productive teams. Researchers and managers alike assumed that increasing order within organizations and teams would lead to increased (Taylor, 1911;March, 1991). However, researchers in the 1960's began to question this assumption and found that this was not always the case (Crozier, 1969). Accordingly, a mechanism to reduce highly ordered and (overly) complex organizations was needed (Abrahamson and Freedman, 2006). This process of reducing highly structured organizations has become the precursor to the concept of disorganization management.Disorganization is the reduction of organizational protocols and structure that enables flexibility and better access to resources across the workforce (Merton, 1968;Crozier, 1969).Given the complexity of contemporary business life (e.g. vast network of suppliers, intermediaries, customers and stakeholders) and the environment (e.g. social, political, economic and technological) in which businesses operate, disorganization is bound to occur to some degree (Bridges, 2009;Sellen and Harper, 2003). This leads to opportunities to proactively leverage the potential benefits of disorganized work environments within teams instead of simply reacting to emerging disorganization.Organizational teams can be structured in a multitude of ways. Such variations are readily observable in non-profit organizations that often rely heavily on volunteers. Teams of volunteers can be highly ordered (i.e. Boy Scouts with its checks and balances and regulations for volunteer members) while other teams can be...

and sponsored by the Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and the Simulation of Behavior (AISB). The event sought to examine the applications, structure, how-to, potentials, and philosophical and theoretical underpinnings of agent-based models (ABM) as they apply to organizational behavior and social agency. We had one day and a half of paper sessions, with social and networking activities. Participants came from seven countries, including the UK, .The workshop was extremely valuable and all who participated agreed that it delivered more than promised. We spent two interesting days sharing ideas, establishing fruitful research relationships, and learning a lot from each other. This was an attempt to see how ABM can be used to enhance social sciences and, in particular, the study of social agency and organizational behavior. The fruits of that workshop are now collected in this book. The discussions of the two days enabled true cross-disciplinary fertilization and inspired us to start and progress with the idea of this volume. We are extremely pleased that some of the spirit of those two days is now reflected into this book.Both editors of this volume share a keen interest in computational and mathematical simulation models. Martin is more experienced in ABM and comes from a more sociological background, while Davide came in contact with ABM simulation in 2010 and conducts his work on organizational behavior. Besides ABM and despite (or because) we come from different disciplinary backgrounds, we found ourselves very much aligned on two points, at least. First, we are both interested in understanding distributed cognitive processes and believe that ABM provides a very powerful frame to study them. Second, we both agree that cross-disciplinary efforts are extremely important for the advancement of science, despite contemporary academia does not seem to value or encourage them.A few words should be spent to describe the process we used to collect and edit this project. After the workshop, we invited participants to submit full papers based on their presentation. All presenters but two agreed to submit their work. We then v vi Preface

He has had a relatively unique route both in his education and career having completed his Bachelor's degree at age 20, MSc at age 21, and Ph.D. at age 26 while also becoming a marketing manager at age 22. His research has been funded by EURAM, Bournemouth University, and Huddersfield University. He has also worked as a Research and Teaching Specialist for European Union-funded projects. Furthermore, he has research papers published in multiple reputed journals and has guest edited numerous journal special issues focusing on entrepreneurship and business plasticity. In addition, he regularly organizes research symposiums covering topics such as disorganization, plasticity, and agility. Apart from his academic career, he is also a Business Consultant and has extensive industry experience. He has been featured on the BBC World News and his work on disorganization and organizational plasticity have been featured in Newsweek, The Conversation UK, Yahoo News, and multiple other prominent media outlets.

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Organizational plasticity: what is it? How does it work and why does it matter? The entire management enterprise has been built on efforts directed towards efficiency (with varying emphases over the decades; see Scott, 2003). This can be defined as the appropriate disposal of resources such that either the least possible inputs are used to produce an output or more output comes from the exploitation of a given amount of inputs (e.g. Simon, 1997Simon, [1947). This approach has provided tremendous support to the development of management as a discipline and it still contributes to the way management is practiced. As a result of this, we know a great deal about how to structure, plan, create, organize, maintain and improve processes, procedures and routines (Abrahamson, 2002). Instead, we know very little about how to disorganize, create simpler structures from complex structures, isolate and deconstruct/ debunk unnecessary routines, reduce bureaucracy to functional levels, for example, (Abrahamson and Freeman, 2013). And this information would have come at great use to face the constraints to organizational actions imposed by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Some have categorized all these aspects under the umbrella of disorganization management (Herath et al., 2016(Herath et al., , 2017 Herath, 2019a, b). However, present day organizations are sometimes required to move towards more flexible and adaptive forms (Fioretti, 2012) due to an ever-changing environment and workforce (Myerson et al., 2010;Raguseo et al., 2016). Especially in the domain of human resource management (HRM) (Ngoc et al., 2021), this need for flexibility has been increasingly evident in the past year, when businesses have had to find different ways to manage the workforce due to unprecedented circumstances arising from the COVID-19 pandemic (Gigauri, 2020;Carnevale and Hatak, 2020).A combination of flexibility and adaptability that makes internal organizational processes malleable and open to change is summarized here with the word plasticity. One of the challenges of this area of study is that it is both costly and difficult to study. It is so because it is usually practiced by trial-and-error in a fluid process where decisions are either unplanned or only partially planned (in a way reminding of what Magnani calls cognizing "through doing"; see Magnani, 2007;Secchi, 2011). This happens because organizational plasticity is motivated (or based), on the one hand, and practiced (or implemented), on the other, under conditions of ambiguity and uncertainty. In the former case, pressures to respond to what could be a temporary condition of the market or to adapt to an ever-changing technological environment are generally difficult to interpret. This, in turn, determines uncertainty in the way in which plasticity is implemented, generating a working solution rather than a recipe. This is not it. Organizational plasticity can be observed at multiple operational levels. While the individual could adopt plastic actions (micro), organi...