This paper describes a survey of normative agent-based social simulation models. These models are examined from the perspective of the foundations of social theory. Agent-based modelling contributes to the research program of methodological individualism. Norms are a central concept in the role theoretic concept of action in the tradition of Durkheim and Parsons. This paper investigates to what...

A variety of theories in the social science, as profound as they may seem, cannot break away from “either-or” dualism. In which, many of them assume dualistic substantialisms in terms of the dichotomies like: methodological individualism vs. methodological collectivism; positivistic sociology vs. intepretivist sociology; agency vs. structure, and so on. In addition to that, there is also anothe...

Game theory has been used to model large-scale social events—such constitutional law, democratic stability, standard setting, gender roles, social movements, communication, markets, the selection of officials by means of elections, coalition formation, resource allocation, distribution of goods, and war—as the aggregate result of individual choices in interdependent decision-making. Game theory...

This is a review essay, based on a critical assessment of The Ant Trap by Brian Epstein. Epstein argues that models in the social sciences are inadequate because they are based on a false ontology of methodological individualism, and proposes a new model of social ontology. I examine this model and point to flaws in it. More generally, I argue against Epstein’s methodological approach, which tr...

We provide a taxonomy of the two most important debates in the philosophy of the cognitive and neural sciences. The first debate is over methodological individualism: is the object of the cognitive and neural sciences the brain, the whole animal, or the animal--environment system? The second is over explanatory style: should explanation in cognitive and neural science be reductionist-mechanisti...

Cultural attributes of employees affect organizations in several different ways through their impact on organizational goals and decision-making processes. Social media create ample opportunities for organizations to improve competitiveness and efficiency of marketing and communications. We empirically investigate the impact of employee cultural dimensions on social media usage at work and at h...

In this address, I revisit the micro–macro problem in criminology, arguing for an “analytical criminology” that takes an integrated approach to the micro– macro problem. I begin by contrasting an integrated methodological-individualist approach with traditional holist and individualist approaches. An integrated approach considers the concept of emergence and tackles the difficult problem of spe...

Arguments derived from the theory of science have been present in strategic management discourse since at least the beginning of the 1970s. The field’s topjournal, the Strategic Management Journal, has printed several theory of sciencebased papers. Most positions in the theory of science (falsificationism, instrumentalism, realism, constructivism, etc.) have been present in the methodological d...

In this short essay we respond to Jepperson and Meyer’s (2011) critique of “action theories” and methodological individualism in sociology. We highlight fundamental problems with their argument, notably their misconception of methodological individualism(s) and the belief that this explanatory principle ignores—and is somehow invalidated by—the complex, “emergent” and multi-level nature of soci...

Most insights of environmental economics are in line with the standard neoclassical economic model of rational behaviour, formulated in terms of maximization of utility in general, or of profits in particular. The standard theory of environmental policy is a case in point. However, the maximization hypothesis and its methodological foundation have been criticized on many grounds related to a la...