Agent-based simulation model to improve managerial capabilities, in a complexity perspective
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Agent-based simulation model to improve managerial capabilities, in a complexity perspective M. J. North and C. M. Macal, Managing Business Complexity: Discovering Strategic Solutions with Agent-based Modeling and Simulation. Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York, 2007, 313 pp; M. Villani (ed.): Educating Managers in Complexity. Aracne, Roma, 2006, 364 pp Pietro Terna Received: 1 April 2008 / Accepted: 11 April 2008 / Published online: 22 May 2008 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC. 2008
With this important book by North and Macal, we go directly to the application side of agent-based simulation (finally, we can add as a positive comment). Real-life applications of agent-based simulation technique are still unusual, for a number of reasons, the first of which being resistance to innovation also in social and business research fields. Most of all, however, their slow application is a consequence of the difficulty encountered when implementing agent-based simulation techniques for real-life applications. With my students I have created agentbased model of firms and public services such as an emergency call structure, but I am always far from reaching a critical mass of demonstrative works. At present I am enthusiastically working with the Italian Central Bank in a critical application of agent-based simulation to create a replica (in some way, a ‘‘playstation’’) of the daily intra-banks payment system combined with a double-action continuous intrabanks money market, to understand system behavior under critical circumstances. My enthusiasm comes from the importance of this real-life problem, which is impossible to reproduce outside of a simulation approach and, as importantly, outside an agent-based approach. At the same time, I am working on a proposal for a European call with a project regarding managers’ behavior. Agent-based simulation represents an irreplaceable kernel of the methodology when considering how to improve the effectiveness of managers’ decisions via the intelligent use of social networks in this kind of activity and expertise. In this case, I am also introducing the avatar1 technique, where avatars are agents reporting to individuals:
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From babylon.com dictionary: (Hindu mythology) earthly incarnation of a god, human embodiment of a deity; (Internet) online image that represents a user in chat rooms or in a virtual space.
P. Terna (&) Dipartimento di Scienze economiche e finanziarie, Universita` di Torino, Torino, Italy e-mail: [email protected]
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i.e., actual people interacting through a simulated reality that replicates the complexity of their real activity framework. In the current social framework of redundancy of links and information, mainly generated by the ICT revolution, we refer to Simon (1971, pp. 40–41): What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources tha
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