Mohammad Ali Shafia | Searcharxiv

arXiv2019

Theories and Practice of Agent based Modeling: Some practical Implications for Economic Planners

Nowadays, we are surrounded by a large number of complex phenomena ranging from rumor spreading, social norms formation to rise of new economic trends and disruption of traditional businesses. To deal with such phenomena,Complex Adaptive System (CAS) framework has been found very influential among social scientists,especially economists. As the most powerful methodology of CAS modeling, Agent-based modeling (ABM) has gained a growing application among academicians and practitioners. ABMs show how simple behavioral rules of agents and local interactions among them at micro-scale can generate surprisingly complex patterns at macro-scale. Despite a growing number of ABM publications, those researchers unfamiliar with this methodology have to study a number of works to understand (1) the why and what of ABMs and (2) the ways they are rigorously developed. Therefore, the major focus of this paper is to help social sciences researchers,especially economists get a big picture of ABMs and know how to develop them both systematically and rigorously.

econ.TH↗

arXiv2018

Forecasting the successful execution of horizontal strategy in a diversified corporation via a DEMATEL-supported artificial neural network - A case study

Nowadays, competition is getting tougher as market shrinks because of financial crisis of the late 2000s. Organizations are tensely forced to leverage their core competencies to survive through attracting more customers and gaining more efficacious operations. In such a situation, diversified corporations which run multiple businesses have opportunities to get competitive advantage and differentiate themselves by executing horizontal strategy. Since this strategy completely engages a number of business units of a diversified corporation through resource sharing among them, any effort to implement it will fail if being not supported by enough information. However, for successful execution of horizontal strategy, managers should have reliable information concerning its success probability in advance. To provide such a precious information, a three-step framework has been developed. In the first step, major influencers on successful execution of horizontal strategy have been captured through literature study and interviewing subject matter experts. In the second step through the decision making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) methodology, critical success factors (CSFs) have been extracted from major influencers and a success probability assessment index system (SPAIS) has been formed. In the third step, due to the statistical nature (multivariate and distribution free) of SPAIS, an artificial neural network has been designed for enabling organizational managers to forecast the success probability of horizontal strategy execution in a multi-business corporation far better than other classical models.

cs.NE↗