Contemporary Agent-Based Models of Organizational Routines · 2014. 11. 25. · 13 ABMs of...
Transcript of Contemporary Agent-Based Models of Organizational Routines · 2014. 11. 25. · 13 ABMs of...
Contemporary
Agent-Based Models of
Organizational Routines
Cara H. Kahl & Matthias Meyer
Institute of Management Control & Accounting
Hamburg University of Technology, Germany
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Agenda
• Objectives
• Describing organizational routines
• Contemporary ABMs of organizational routines
• Conclusions
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Objectives
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Objectives
• Scientific work on routines is accumulating.
• And there are still debates on conceptual issues such as:
• Does the concept of a routine encompass behavior and cognition?
• Does the individual or the organization affect a routine more?
• Must steps of a routine occur in an order to be considered a “routine”?
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Objectives
• Also, agent-based models formalizing “fuzzy” parts of the whole are emerging.
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Objectives
• Also, agent-based models formalizing “fuzzy” parts of the whole are emerging.
How are they doing this?
And what can we learn from it?
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Agenda
• Objectives
• Describing organizational routines
• Contemporary ABMs of organizational routines
• Conclusions
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Describing organizational routines
“regular and predictable behavior patterns of firms” (Nelson & Winter, 1982, p. 14)
“repetitive patterns of interdependent organizational actions” (Parmigiani & Howard-Grenville, 2011, p. 419)
“an executable capability for repeated performance in some context that has been
learned by an organization in response to selective pressures” (Cohen et al., 1996, p. 638)
“not actions per se, but they have the potential to shape actions” (Ter Bogt & Scapens, 2014, p. 5)
“collective phenomena” (Breslin, 2014, p. 64)
“multi-level mechanisms” (Vromen, 2011, p. 175)
“generative systems” (Pentland, Hærem, & Hillison, 2010, p. 934)
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Describing organizational routines
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Agenda
• Objectives
• Describing organizational routines
• Contemporary ABMs of organizational routines
• Conclusions
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ABMs of organizational routines
Pentland, B. T., Feldman, M. S., Becker, M. C. & Liu, P. (2012). Dynamics of
organizational routines: a generative model. Journal of Management Studies, 49(8), 1484–1508.
doi:10.1016/j.respol.2007.12.012
Gao, D., Deng, X. & Bai, B. (2014). The emergence of organizational routines from habitual
behaviours of multiple actors: an agent-based simulation study. Journal of Simulation, 8(3), 215–230.
doi:l0.l057/jos.20l4
Miller, K. D., Choi, S. & Pentland, B. T. (2014). The role of transactive memory in the
formation of organizational routines. Strategic Organization, 12(2), 109–133.
doi:10.1177/1476127014521609
Cohen, M. D., Levinthal, D. A. & Warglien, M. (2014). Collective performance: modeling the
interaction of habit-based actions. Industrial and Corporate Change, dtu005.
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ABMs of organizational routines
Why these 4 models?
1. An organizational routine is modeled specifically based on accounts derived from
literature discussing how the phenomenon can be conceptualized in the first place.
2. An organizational routine is the intended emergent outcome of the simulation.
3. Theoretical work on organizational routines is incorporated differently across the 4
models, therewith creating diversity in the sample.
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ABMs of organizational routines
Why these 4 models?
1. An organizational routine is modeled specifically based on accounts derived from
literature discussing how the phenomenon can be conceptualized in the first place.
2. An organizational routine is the intended emergent outcome of the simulation.
3. Theoretical work on organizational routines is incorporated differently across the 4
models, therewith creating diversity in the sample.
Pentland et al. (2012) → focuses on actions as basic entities
Gao et al. (2014) → models an empirical socio-technical system
Miller et al. (2014) → incorporates a form of distributed cognition
Cohen et al. (2014) → makes detailed assumptions about individual cognition in context
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ABMs of organizational routines
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ABMs of organizational routines
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ABMs of organizational routines
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ABMs of organizational routines
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ABMs of organizational routines
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ABMs of organizational routines
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ABMs of organizational routines
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Agenda
• Objectives
• Describing organizational routines
• Contemporary ABMs of organizational routines
• Conclusions
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Conclusions
How are authors modeling organizational routines?
• They’re doing it!
• They’re addressing / incorporating essential features such as:
• Organization
• Triggers
• Patterns
• Multiple actors
• Individual / collective behavior
• Individual / collective cognition
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Conclusions
How are authors modeling organizational routines?
• They’re doing it!
• They’re differentially addressing / incorporating essential features , for instance:
• Organization (specific vs. unspecific reference)
• Triggers
• Patterns (predefined vs. emerging order)
• Multiple actors (social, socio-technical, unspecific)
• Individual / collective behavior
• Individual / collective cognition (various constructs, mixed levels)
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Conclusions
What can we learn from this about modeling organizational routines?
• Which organization is being modeled?
• Whose routine is being modeled?
• Distinction between behavior and “cognition” (and their indicators!)
• Representation of individual and “collective” levels
• Who is modeling similar phenomena?
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Literature
Breslin, D. (2014). Calm in the storm: Simulating the management of organizational co-evolution. Futures, 57, 62–77. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6486.2012.01063.x
Cohen, M. D., Burkhart, R., Dosi, G., Egidi, M., Marengo, L., Warglien, M. & Winter, S. (1996). Routines and other recurring action patterns of organizations: contemporary research issues. Industrial and Corporate
Change, 5(3), 653–698.
Cohen, M. D., Levinthal, D. A. & Warglien, M. (2014). Collective performance: modeling the interaction of habit-based actions. Industrial and Corporate Change, dtu005.
D’Adderio, L., Feldman, M., Lazaric, N. & Pentland, B. (2012). Call for papers - Special issue on routine dynamics: Exploring sources of stability and change in organizations. Organization Science, 23(6), 1782–1783.
doi:10.1287/orsc.1120.0800
Felin, T., Foss, N. J., Heimeriks, K. H. & Madsen, T. L. (2012). Microfoundations of routines and capabilities: Individuals, processes, and structure. Journal of Management Studies, 49(8), 1351–1374.
doi:10.1111/j.1467-6486.2012.01052.x
Gao, D., Deng, X. & Bai, B. (2014). The emergence of organizational routines from habitual behaviours of multiple actors: an agent-based simulation study.
Gevers, J. M. P., Passos, A. M. & Uitdewilligen, S. (2014). Call for papers: Special issue on “Team adaptation and the dynamics of team cognition.” European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology.
Retrieved from http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/cfp/pewocfp.pdf
Jack, L. & Mundy, J. (2013). Routine and change: the role of management accounting and control. Journal of Accounting & Organizational Change, 9(2), 112–118.
Lazaric, N. (2011). Organizational routines and cognition: an introduction to empirical and analytical contributions. Journal of Institutional Economics, 7(02), 147–156. doi:10.1017/S1744137411000130
Miller, K. D., Choi, S. & Pentland, B. T. (2014). The role of transactive memory in the formation of organizational routines. Strategic Organization, 12(2), 109–133. doi:10.1177/1476127014521609
Murji, K. & Neal, S. (2014). Call for papers - Sociology special issue on the sociologies of everyday life. Sociology. Retrieved from http://www.britsoc.co.uk/media/61136/sociologies_of_the_everyday_CFP.pdf
Nelson, R. R. & Winter, S. G. (1982). An evolutionary theory of economic change. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Parmigiani, A. & Howard-Grenville, J. (2011). Routines revisited: Exploring the capabilities and practice perspectives. The Academy of Management Annals, 5(1), 413–453. doi:10.1080/19416520.2011.589143
Pentland, B. T., Feldman, M. S., Becker, M. C. & Liu, P. (2012). Dynamics of organizational routines: a generative model. Journal of Management Studies, 49(8), 1484–1508. doi:10.1016/j.respol.2007.12.012
Pentland, B. T., Hærem, T. & Hillison, D. (2010). Comparing organizational routines as recurrent patterns of action. Organization Studies, 31(7), 917–940. doi:10.1177/0170840610373200
Ter Bogt, H. J. & Scapens, R. W. (2014). Institutions, rationality and agency in management accounting: Rethinking and extending the Burns and Scapens Framework. Available at SSRN 2464980.
doi:10.2139/ssrn.2464980
Thank you for your attention!
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Extra
• The models selected for comparison were retrieved with an extensive literature search.
• Articles containing the word pairs “routine” and “agent-based” or “routine” and “multi-agent” in
their titles, abstracts or keywords were searched in the following databases: Ebsco, Web of Science,
Jstor, Science Direct, EconBiz and SSRN.
• Afterwards, and in a similar manner as reported by Parmigiani & Howard-Grenville (2011), the
same word pairs were searched in the following journals: Academy of Management Journal,
Administrative Science Quarterly, Management Science, Organization Science, Strategic
Management Journal, Industrial and Corporate Change, Journal of Management Studies,
Organization Studies and Strategic Organization.
• Databases as well as journals were searched from 1996-2014; 1996 was chosen as a limit due to the
seminal paper by Cohen et al. (1996) summarizing their Santa Fe Institute conference to establish a
common conceptualization of organizational routines.
• The search resulted in 22 contributions, whereas some do not incorporate conceptualizations of
organizational routines, and others do not portray agent-based models.
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Extra
The four models discussed in this section were chosen based on the following process:
• Firstly, their authors model an organizational routine specifically based on accounts
derived from literature discussing how the phenomenon can be conceptualized in the
first place.
• Secondly, an organizational routine is the intended emergent outcome of the simulation.
• Thirdly, they were chosen based on the differential way they incorporate theoretical
work on organizational routines, therewith creating diversity in the sample:
• The first model focuses on actions as basic entities,
• while the second models an empirical socio-technical system.
• The third model incorporates a form of distributed cognition,
• and the fourth sophisticated assumptions about individual cognition in context.
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Extra
Among the models not chosen for comparison were those depicting business design
processes, workflow management systems or process systems engineering (Siirola,
Hauan, & Westerberg, 2003; Sikora & Shaw, 1998; Yang, Sung, Wu, & Chen, 2010). Others
focus primarily on the exploration and exploitation of knowledge (Aggarwal, Siggelkow,
& Singh, 2011; Geisendorf, 2009; Kim & Rhee, 2009; Siggelkow & Levinthal, 2005),
capabilities (Maritan & Coen, 2004), norms (Criado, 2013), or other aspects of
organizational design (Bruderer & Singh, 1996; Levitt, 2012; Siggelkow, 2011). Some
contributions explicitly model routines without reference to the conceptualizations
elaborated (Groff, 2007; Rouchier, Bousquet, Requier-Desjardins, & Antona, 2001; Silva,
Gonçalves, Dimuro, Dimuro, & Jerez, 2013); nonetheless they describe targets which, in a
face valid way, constitute organizational routines, such as meeting scheduling (Chun, Wai,
& Wong, 2003) or the process of entrepreneurship (McMullen & Dimov, 2013). A final
paper worth noting is authored by Gaskin, Berente, Lyytinen, & Yoo (2014), who report a
computational model of sociomaterial routines. These models were briefly mentioned here
to inform the interested reader of similar developments beyond the ones compared later in
this section.