Emergent Effects of Task Interdependence and Bounded Rationality on Workgroup Performance

Abstract

Though the question of the determinants of workgroup performance is one of the most central in organization science, precise theoretical frameworks and formal demonstrations are still missing. Empirical tests from field research gives only episodic and often inconclusive results. Moreover, emergent (unpredictable) results are hard to be found (and even more to be explained) with empirical investigations. In order to fill in this gap an agent-based simulation model is here used to study the emergent effects of task interdependence and bounded rationality on workgroup performance. The fundamental modes of connection (types of systemic couplings) between tasks are formalized and operationalized through the simulation model. Following both the formalization and simulation experiments is demonstrated that the parallel mode is the most simplex, followed by the sequential and then by the reciprocal. This result is far from being new in organization science, but what is remarkable is that now it has the strength of an algorithmic demonstration instead of being based on the authoritativeness of some scholar or on some episodic empirical finding. Workgroup performance is measured by means of two main indexes: effectiveness, which refers to the percentage of completed tasks respect to those potentially executable; and efficiency, which refers to the resources employed for getting the completed tasks. A set of six norms have been introduced in order to coordinate group members. They are required for reaching a satisfying performance, and they lead to a confirmation of the law of requisite variety: complex interdependencies do require complex norms. The acknowledgment of agents' bounded rationality dramatically reduces workgroup performance and addresses to a rather emergent result: when agents' rationality is severely bounded simple norms work better than complex norms.