The Influence Of Changing Environment For Path Dependence In Hierarchical Organizations

The following paper aims at describing how path dependent hierarchical organizations are affected by a changing environment. The results of the latest research in this field (Petermann et al. 2012) analyzed path dependency of norms and institutions in different kinds of hierarchical organizations and the impact of leadership within this process. The results were produces for stable environments only. Agent based simulation was applied as research method. In order to examine how this process evolves when the organizational environment in changing the model M1 (Petermann et al. 2012) will be enhanced. The goal is to simulate the impact of external influences to the norms emerging within the organization. The research described is not yet completed so this paper characterizes first thoughts and possible simulation approaches to tackle the problem at hand.