A multi-agent simulation platform for modeling perfectly rational and bounded-rational agents in organizations

This paper presents an agent-based simulation framework for the analysis of the equilibria that emerge in a complex structure such as an organization; we can think of some of these equilibria as corporate culture. We concentrate on modeling the effort exerted by heterogeneous agents in an organization, and how the interaction between them may lead to a common level of effort (corporate culture). The simple model we propose is a system in which agents interact in a dynamic, adaptive and evolving way. Such a model encompasses many of the peculiarities which make organization modeling a hard task, because it would involve a difficult mathematical problem with solution highly sensitive to parameters. The computational approach, by contrast, allows us to overcome some of these difficulties and to consider easily both perfectly rational and bounded-rational agents; in this way we are able to study the interactions between different types of agents and interpret them in the relevant economic frame. Consequently we can observe how different compositions of the population may lead the system to different common behaviours; the implications of our findings are both descriptive and normative, and shed light on some core problems of the economics of organization design.