Social influence, negotiation and cognition

To understand how personal agreements can be generated within complexly differentiated social systems, we develop an agent-based computational model of negotiation in which social influence plays a key role in the attainment of social and cognitive integration. The model reflects a view of social influence that is predicated on the interactions among such factors as the agents' cognition, their abilities to initiate and maintain social behaviour, as well as the structural patterns of social relations in which influence unfolds. Findings from a set of computer simulations of the model show that the degree to which agents are influenced depends on the network of relations in which they are located, on the order in which interactions occur, and on the type of information that these interactions convey. We also find that a fundamental role in explaining influence is played by how inclined the agents are to be concilatory with each other, how accurate their beliefs are, and how self-confident they are in dealing with their social interactions. Moreover, the model provides insights into the trade-offs typically involved in the exercise of social influence

Coalition based approach for shop floor agility – a multiagent approach

Dissertation submitted for a PhD degree in Electrical Engineering, speciality of Robotics and Integrated Manufacturing from the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências e TecnologiaThis thesis addresses the problem of shop floor agility. In order to cope with the disturbances and uncertainties that characterise the current business scenarios faced by manufacturing companies, the capability of their shop floors needs to be improved quickly, such that these shop floors may be adapted, changed or become easily modifiable (shop floor reengineering). One of the critical elements in any shop floor reengineering process is the way the control/supervision architecture is changed or modified to accommodate for the new processes and equipment. This thesis, therefore, proposes an architecture to support the fast adaptation or changes in the control/supervision architecture. This architecture postulates that manufacturing systems are no more than compositions of modularised manufacturing components whose interactions when aggregated are governed by contractual mechanisms that favour configuration over reprogramming. A multiagent based reference architecture called Coalition Based Approach for Shop floor Agility – CoBASA, was created to support fast adaptation and changes of shop floor control architectures with minimal effort. The coalitions are composed of agentified manufacturing components (modules), whose relationships within the coalitions are governed by contracts that are configured whenever a coalition is established. Creating and changing a coalition do not involve programming effort because it only requires changes to the contract that regulates it

An agent-based model of energy in social networks

We present a family of simulation models of agents with energy from social interactions. We take the concept of “energy” from social network analysts Cross & Parker, from Collins’s micro-sociology of interaction rituals, and from the social psychologists Ryan & Deci’s studies on intrinsic motivation. We use simulation models as “tools for thinking” about what energy is, and how it relates to the take up of ideas, the formation of cultural groups and the performance of work. Our models also provide insight into phenomena from studies of “communities of practice”, social capital and computer models of networks. Baker & Quinn have also developed simulations of agents with energy, and so we offer a critique of those. We develop our models as extensions of the Axelrod Cultural Model. Our family of energy models include those that ascribe “emotional energy” variously to individual agents, to agents’ individual attributes, and to agents’ memories of interactions rituals. Agents obtain energy payoffs from interactions based variously on their sense of autonomy, belongingness and competence. We compare the behaviour of each model and choice of payoff function through experiments to test claims derived from Cross & Parker: namely that “energisers” cause greater take up of their ideas, cause larger cultural groups to form around them, and raise the problem-solving performance of the agent population. We demonstrate this first claim for several model scenarios, but fail to find scenarios where the second two hold. We then conduct experiments to relate the capabilities of energisers to tasks of: disseminating ideas to otherwise homogeneous groups, and; spanning boundaries across cultural divides between groups. In all experiments we find two factors play critical roles in determining the diffusion and homogenisation of culture: the decay of energy charges on memories, and; the initial number of cultural traits in the population

Agent-based modelling of transactive memory systems and knowledge processes in agile versus traditional software development teams.

The objective of this research is to develop an agent-based model of transactive memory systems (TMS - meta-knowledge of expertise and knowledge in a team) simulating software development teams using two different software development methodologies. Waterfall (a structured methodology with a series of large discrete phases) and the Agile. eXtreme programming (XP - more recent. dynamic, and tuned to change and flexibility). There does exist research relating to TMS; comparisons of software development methodologies; cognitive processes of software development teams; and also agent-based modelling of social and cognitive systems. This is interdisciplinary research spanning psychology and computer science aiming to consolidate these discrete streams of research. The model evaluated the parameters of small/large tasks. and working solo/in pairs to investigate the effect on TMS, knowledge and team output. Over three sirnulaiions. increasing in cognitive realism. the model introduced greater complexity and novelty to the agents work. and various initial conditions of team knowledge and team member familiarity. The results illustrated a number of differences in TMS, knowledge processes and output between XP and Waterfall teams. The main findings indicate that as the novelty and complexity of the task increases the use of some XP techniques can lower the reduction in output. Also the dependence on TMS accuracy for teams using some XP techniques in complex novel environments is high while the team knowledge distribution becomes much more homogenous. This contradicts the literature that asserts a positive relationship between TMS accuracy and knowledge heterogeneity. Results also suggest that XP techniques can compensate for the advantages relating to team members' prior knowledge of each other allowing newly formed X P teams to perform better. The results contribute to understanding how knowledge and memory processes in software development teams affect team output, and how the adoption of XP practices can produce results that, challenge the established TMS literature

An agent-based model of energy in social networks

We present a family of simulation models of agents with energy from social interactions. We take the concept of “energy” from social network analysts Cross & Parker, from Collins’s micro-sociology of interaction rituals, and from the social psychologists Ryan & Deci’s studies on intrinsic motivation. We use simulation models as “tools for thinking” about what energy is, and how it relates to the take up of ideas, the formation of cultural groups and the performance of work. Our models also provide insight into phenomena from studies of “communities of practice”, social capital and computer models of networks. Baker & Quinn have also developed simulations of agents with energy, and so we offer a critique of those. We develop our models as extensions of the Axelrod Cultural Model. Our family of energy models include those that ascribe “emotional energy” variously to individual agents, to agents’ individual attributes, and to agents’ memories of interactions rituals. Agents obtain energy payoffs from interactions based variously on their sense of autonomy, belongingness and competence. We compare the behaviour of each model and choice of payoff function through experiments to test claims derived from Cross & Parker: namely that “energisers” cause greater take up of their ideas, cause larger cultural groups to form around them, and raise the problem-solving performance of the agent population. We demonstrate this first claim for several model scenarios, but fail to find scenarios where the second two hold. We then conduct experiments to relate the capabilities of energisers to tasks of: disseminating ideas to otherwise homogeneous groups, and; spanning boundaries across cultural divides between groups. In all experiments we find two factors play critical roles in determining the diffusion and homogenisation of culture: the decay of energy charges on memories, and; the initial number of cultural traits in the population.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceWarwick Business School (WBS)GBUnited Kingdo

The analysis of consumer decision-making styles and buying behaviour of grey luxury fashion goods in the Thai market

The rapid growth of the grey luxury fashion market in Thailand creates a need to understand consumers' behaviour towards the grey luxury fashion goods because the grey market affects many players in Thailand ranging from the luxury brand's authorized retailers, Thai government, Thai fashion brands, and Thai consumers. This thesis addresses the lack of research in consumers' buying behaviour in the grey market by investigating Thai consumers' decision-making styles for grey luxury fashion goods. Furthermore, it also determines the relationships of consumers' demographic differences including gender, age, education, occupation, and income, and the consumers' decision­making styles for grey luxury fashion goods. The findings of this thesis summarize the results from a sequential mixed-method data collection: online-survey questionnaires and semi-structured interviews of Thai grey luxury fashion consumers. The outcomes reveal that there are eleven consumers' decision-making styles dimensions that can be seen in Thai consumers when purchasing luxury fashion goods from the grey market which are Perfectionist, Brand Conscious, Novelty-fashion Conscious, Recreational-Hedonistic Conscious, Price Conscious, Impulsive and Careless, Confused by Overchoice, Habitual and Brand Loyal, Conspicuous Conscious, Reliance on Celebrities, and Exclusivity Conscious. The differences in these decision-making styles are strongly related to the differences of consumers' gender and age. While the differences of consumers' occupation and income are moderately related, and education is weakly related to the differences in consumers' decision-making styles of Thai consumers towards the grey luxury fashion goods. This thesis makes an original theoretical contribution by filling the gap in research on consumers' decision-making styles for specific category products, the grey luxury fashion goods. Furthermore, it validates the applicability of the Consumer Style Inventory (CSI) model for Thai consumers while developing three additional decision-making style dimensions, Conspicuous Conscious, Reliance on Celebrities, and Exclusivity Conscious, to explain Thai consumers' grey luxury fashion consumption. In addition, it also makes managerial contributions by utilizing the research result to develop an approach for the Thai government to deal with this emerging grey market issue