Computer simulation is a prominent method in organizational studies and strategic management. While there are many uses for computer simulation (including the development of engineering systems inside high-technology firms), most academics in the fields of strategic management and organizational studies have used computer simulation to understand how organizations or firms operate. More recently, however, researchers have also started to apply computer simulation to understand organizational behaviour at a more micro-level, focusing on individual and interpersonal cognition and behavior such as team working. While the strategy researchers have tended to focus on testing theories of firm performance, many organizational theorists are focused on more descriptive theories, the one uniting theme has been the use of computational models to either verify or extend theories. It is perhaps no accident that those researchers using computational simulation have been inspired by ideas from biological modeling, ecology, theoretical physics and thermodynamics, chaos theory, complexity theory and organization studies since these methods have also been fruitfully used in those areas.

Basic distinctions/definitions

Researchers studying organizations and firms using computer simulations utilize a variety of basic distinctions and definitions that are common in computational science

Methodological approaches

There are a variety of different methodological approaches in the area of computational simulation. These include but are not limited to the following. (Note: this list is not Mutually Exclusive nor Collectively Exhaustive, but tries to be fair to the dominant trends. For three different taxonomies see Carley 2001; Davis et al. 2007; Dooley 2002)

Early research

Early research in strategy and organizations using computational simulation concerned itself with either the macro-behavior of systems or specific organizational mechanisms. Highlights of early research included:

Later research

Later research using computational simulation flowered in the 1990s and beyond. Highlights include: