Inter-event time interval analysis of organizational-level activity: Venture capital market case

Abstract

Examining the venture capital market as a representative case, we made the first empirical study about timing and rhythm in organizational behavior. We analyze inter-event time intervals and find that the fat-tailed property of organizational behavior is similar that found in individual behavior, but that its lower scaling exponent indicates it is more heterogeneous than individual behavior. We quantify the observable burst and memory effect in organizational behavior. The burst effect occurs when organizations make frequent business deals during a short time period. This is a potential factor affecting economic cycles and market turbulence. The memory effect occurs when future organizational behavior correlates with past behavior, which potentially allows the prediction of future behavior. We find fewer bursts and a stronger memory effect in organizational behavior than in individual behavior. This difference may be related to resource constraint, business routine, and market competition. These findings shed light on the changeable features of organizational behavior and economic system. We drew a necessity to extend study on human dynamics to organization dynamics by exploring real organizational data in a wide range and proposing a mechanism to better modeling organizational behaviors. Understanding the temporal characteristics of organizational behavior is essential to understanding economic complexities.