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

Authored by Guido Fioretti, Alessandro Lomi

Date Published: 2008-01

Sponsors: Italian Ministry for University and Scientific Research

Platforms: NetLogo

Model Documentation: Other Narrative

Model Code URLs: http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/models/community/GarbageCan_buck

Abstract

Cohen, March and Olsen's Garbage Can Model (GCM) of organizational choice represent perhaps the first n and remains by far the most influential nagent-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.

Tags

Agent-based modelling Garbage can model Organization theory