Shared Mental Models: Insights and Perspectives on Ideologies and Institutions

Abstract

SUMMARYThis article leads off a special symposium comprised of a select group of public choice economists and political scientists that assembled to reflect on the important contribution that Arthur T. Denzau and Douglass C. North’s seminal piece on Shared Mental Models (1993) has made over the last quarter of a century. Relatedly, we apply concepts from Denzau and North’s Shared Mental Models to suggest a modified model of the Nash equilibrium used in non‐cooperative game theory to help us operationalize the “learning path” by which we can move from “siloed” thinking to a wider “systems” view of organizations, our environment, and indeed, the world. Our model has implications for the way we respond to economic crises, financial meltdowns, and global health epidemics, such as the COVID‐19 pandemic.