Encyclopedia of Operations Research and Management Science

2001 Edition
| Editors: Saul I. Gass, Carl M. Harris

Computational organization theory

  • Kathleen M. Carley
  • William A. Wallace
Reference work entry
First Online:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-0611-X_143
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INTRODUCTION

The discipline of computational organization theory (COT) focuses on theorizing about, describing, understanding, and predicting the behavior of organizations and the process of organizing using formal approaches (computational, mathematical and logical models). This research includes the development, testing and analysis of computational models, and the development and testing of computational techniques particularly suited to organizational analysis. These computational abstractions are incorporated into organizational practice through tools, procedures, measures and knowledge.

The notion of organizations in this field spans groups, teams, societies, corporations, industries, and governments (e.g., see Carley and Prietula, 1994; Prietula, Carley and Gasser, 1998; Gilbert and Doran, 1994). The two generic types of organizations considered are the human and the artificial. Human organizations continually acquire, manipulate, and produce information (and possibly other...

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Copyright information

© Kluwer Academic Publishers 2001

Authors and Affiliations

  • Kathleen M. Carley
    • 1
  • William A. Wallace
    • 2
  1. 1.Carnegie Mellon UniversityPittsburghUSA
  2. 2.Rensselaer Polytechnic InstituteTroyUSA