Agent-Based Modeling Method: New Linkage of Computer Science and Organizational Psychology

The aim of the present work is to evaluate and report about the development of Agent-Based Modeling (ABM) for research, education and consultancy inside organizational psychology. Agent-Based Models (ABMs) are a simulation modelling technique that uses virtual agents interacting with other virtual agents within a virtual environment and with certain virtual resources (Bonabeau, 2002). Starting from two proposals published in 2012, one by Weinhardt and Vancouver, who stated that computer simulations are not very common in this field, and the other one by Hughes, Clegg, Robinson and Crowder, who stressed the advantages of using this research method, we assessed how widespread this technique is in the field of organizational psychology. In the last few years, following the levels of the cognitive modelling suggested by Sun, Coward and Zenzen (2005), some ABMs have been developed in order to carry out some organizational studies. Nevertheless, they tend to work at a high level of abstraction but generally overlooking interactions and do not make use of some ready-to-use agent architectures (e.g. BDI, reactive). Even if they have started to be considered for organizational studies, computational simulations, particularly ABMs, still require work and effort in order to be fully acknowledged as a valid research method to be used inside organizational psychology. As for any other research method, their real effectiveness must be proven before deciding to use it in a massive way.