Modelling the Evolution of Business Relationships and Networks as Complex Adaptive Systems

Abstract

This thesis seeks to better understand the development and evolution of business relationships and networks from a complex systems perspective, using agent-based modelling. The thesis focuses on the early stages of the development of a business network: the transition from autarky to an interdependent yet decentralised system of production and consumption, that relies on exchange, specialisation and division of labour. The thesis uses existing research on activities and interactions in business relationships in order to identify social mechanisms that constitute a causal explanation of the self-organisation of an interdependent production system. These mechanisms are implemented in a computer model of autonomous agents, and the implementation is validated through the reproduction of stylised facts from prior laboratory experiments. Subsequent model analysis identifies alternative patterns of emergence and investigates the interacting effects of input parameters that define social and economic aspects of the model. The presented model is modularly expandable, facilitating the introduction of new aspects regarding the agents' behaviour, their economic and technological system and their environment, inviting extensions and future research on one unifying platform.