OrgAhead

A Simulation of Organizational Adaptation

OrgAhead is an organizational learning model designed to test different forms of organizations under a common task representation. Each member of the organization receives information from a subordinate or from the environment, makes a decision based on the information and what he or she has learned so far, and provides superiors with an answer to the decision. These decisions are either `yes/no' or `yes/maybe/no'; again, we're dealing with an intellective model.

Virtual experiments are run to address a variety of questions regarding organizational learning and performance including the following:

• How do various constraints affect the performance of the organization? These constraints may include
  • size of the organization,
  • resources agents can manage at once, and
  • how much memory, or history, each agent can retain.
• Do the structures of adaptive organizations (i.e. those that perform higher) radically differ from those that are maladaptive?
• Does initial learning, or training, have long-term effects?

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