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An Agent-Based Representation of the Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice

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Cohen, March and Olsen's Garbage Can Model (GCM) of organizational choice represent perhaps the first – and remains by far the most influential –agent-based representation of organizational decision processes. According to the GCM organizations are conceptualized as crossroads of time-dependent flows of four distinct classes of objects: 'participants,' 'opportunities,' 'solutions' and 'problems.' Collisions among the different objects generate events called 'decisions.' In this paper we use NetLogo to build an explicit agent-based representation of the original GCM. We conduct a series of simulation experiments to validate and extend some of the most interesting conclusions of the GCM. We show that our representation is able to reproduce a number of properties of the original model. Yet, unlike the original model, in our representation these properties are not encoded explicitly, but emerge from general principles of the Garbage Can decision processes.

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  • Guido Fioretti & Alessandro Lomi, 2007. "An Agent-Based Representation of the Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice," Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, vol. 11(1), pages 1-1.
    • Handle: RePEc:jas:jasssj:2007-19-3
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    1. Tesfatsion, Leigh & Judd, Kenneth L., 2006. "Handbook of Computational Economics, Vol. 2: Agent-Based Computational Economics," Staff General Research Papers Archive 10368, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    2. Greta Hsu & Michael T. Hannan, 2005. "Identities, Genres, and Organizational Forms," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 16(5), pages 474-490, October.
    3. Olsen, Johan P., 2001. "Garbage Cans, New Institutionalism, and the Study of Politics," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 95(1), pages 191-198, March.
    4. Leigh Tesfatsion & Kenneth L. Judd (ed.), 2006. "Handbook of Computational Economics," Handbook of Computational Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 2, number 2.
    5. Axelrod, Robert & Tesfatsion, Leigh, 2006. "A Guide for Newcomers to Agent-Based Modeling in the Social Sciences," Staff General Research Papers Archive 12515, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    6. Bendor, Jonathan & Moe, Terry M. & Shotts, Kenneth W., 2001. "Recycling the Garbage Can: An Assessment of the Research Program," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 95(1), pages 169-190, March.
    7. James G. March, 1978. "Bounded Rationality, Ambiguity, and the Engineering of Choice," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 9(2), pages 587-608, Autumn.
    8. Pierre Romelaer, 2002. "International Career Management: The Relevance of the Garbage-Can Model," Post-Print hal-00155394, HAL.
    9. Robert Gibbons, 2003. "Team theory, garbage cans and real organizations: some history and prospects of economic research on decision-making in organizations," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 12(4), pages 753-787, August.
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    1. Haoying Han & Shih-Kung Lai, 2011. "Decision Network: A Planning Tool for Making Multiple, Linked Decisions," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 38(1), pages 115-128, February.
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