Chapter 26 Agent-Based Models of Organizations

Chang, Myong‐Hun; Harrington, Joseph E.

doi:10.1016/s1574-0021(05)02026-5

Cited by 82 publications

(74 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…19,20 The researchers presented preliminary network measurements and visualizations to the health department's leaders, and together they established goals for the analysis. For the managers, the goals were to identify patterns of information flow and resource distribution in the programs and divisions and to gain insight into the potential impact of a planned merger of two divisions.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Findings from an Organizational Network Analysis to Support Local Public Health Management

et al. 2008

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We assessed the feasibility of using organizational network analysis in a local public health organization. The research setting was an urban/suburban county health department with 156 employees. The goal of the research was to study communication and information flow in the department and to assess the technique for public health management. Network data were derived from survey questionnaires. Computational analysis was performed with the Organizational Risk Analyzer. Analysis revealed centralized communication, limited interdependencies, potential knowledge loss through retirement, and possible informational silos. The findings suggested opportunities for more cross program coordination but also suggested the presences of potentially efficient communication paths and potentially beneficial social connectedness. Managers found the findings useful to support decision making. Public health organizations must be effective in an increasingly complex environment. Network analysis can help build public health capacity for complex system management.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Findings from an Organizational Network Analysis to Support Local Public Health Management

et al. 2008

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“…Bonabeau 2002;Safarzyńska and van den Bergh 2010;Tesfatsion 2006). Autonomy in this sense means that the individual behavior of the agents is not determined directly (''top-down'') by a central authority, irrespective of interaction with a possibly existing central unit or feedback from the macro-to the micro-level (Epstein 2006a;Chang and Harrington 2006). The agents receive information from their environments and about other agents, and react to the information; however, they also pro-actively initiate actions in order to achieve their objectives (Wooldridge and Jennings 1995).…”

Section: Building Blocks Of Agent-based Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, it might be appropriate to regard a department or a family as a single agent. Grouping individual agents to ''aggregate'' agents is particularly interesting in managerial science since, for example, it allows hierarchical structures to be mapped (Chang and Harrington 2006;Anderson 1999). However, agents do not necessarily have to be human or, at least, solely composed of humans; rather they can be biological entities (e.g.…”

Section: Building Blocks Of Agent-based Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In a rather abstract formulation, the environment characterizes the tasks or problems the agents face, and, in this sense, the environment also represents the constraints the agents have to respect when fulfilling their tasks (Chang and Harrington 2006). Depending on the subject of the model, the environment might be given by the physical space (i.e.…”

Section: Building Blocks Of Agent-based Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As a consequence, in agentbased models agents are usually not able to find the global optimum of a solution space ''instantaneously''; rather they discover the solution space stepwise in a process of searching for better solutions (e.g. Safarzyńska and van den Bergh 2010;Chang and Harrington 2006). Hence, the processes by which organizations evolve or technological changes diffuse, for example, based on the behavior of interacting agents, are a major concern in ABM.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Agent-based modeling in managerial science: an illustrative survey and study

Wall

2014

Rev Manag Sci

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This article provides an overview of the current state of agent-based modeling in managerial science. In particular, the aim is to illustrate major lines of development in agent-based modeling in the field and to highlight the opportunities and limitations of this research approach. The article employs a twofold approach: First, a survey on research efforts employing agent-based simulation models related to domains of managerial science is given which have benefited considerably from this research method. Second, an illustrative study is conducted in the area of management accounting research, a domain which, so far, has rarely seen agentbased modeling efforts. In particular, we introduce an agent-based model that allows to investigate the relation between intra-firm interdependencies, performance measures used in incentive schemes, and accounting accuracy. We compare this model to a study which uses both, a principal-agent model and an empirical analysis. We find that the three approaches come to similar major findings but that they suffer from rather different limitations and also provide different perspectives on the subject. In particular, it becomes obvious that agent-based modeling allows us to capture complex organizational structures and provides insights into the processual features of the system under investigation.

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A Theory of Nascent Entrepreneurship and Organization

Felin

Knudsen

2012

Manage Decis Econ

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In this paper, we develop a theory and model of organizational founding and the emergence of collective beliefs and strategies. We explicate how collective beliefs, resulting in the formation of new organizations, emerge via three social mechanisms: sorting or matching, interaction, and selection. We specifically highlight how value homophily, social processes, and threshold effects contribute to the actualization (or not) of entrepreneurial beliefs and ideas. Our theory and model highlight not only the emergence of collective beliefs but also the socially interdependent nature of belief realization, choice, and strategy in nascent organizations. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Chapter 26 Agent-Based Models of Organizations

Cited by 82 publications

References 43 publications

Findings from an Organizational Network Analysis to Support Local Public Health Management

Findings from an Organizational Network Analysis to Support Local Public Health Management

Agent-based modeling in managerial science: an illustrative survey and study

A Theory of Nascent Entrepreneurship and Organization

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