Most existing studies have focused on the innovation capabilities of organisations within interfirm networks while neglecting to consider the impact of the choice of innovation evolution mechanisms ...and the degree of internal interaction control on this system. This study addresses this research gap based on the NK model framework to investigate how different innovation evolution mechanisms and the degree of internal interaction control affect interfirm network performance. In addition, we investigate the moderating role played by the frequency of technological change between the innovation evolution mechanism and the degree of internal interaction control of the interfirm network. The results show that to achieve higher performance levels, the interfirm network should be assigned a self-organisational model in the early stage of innovation evolution, while in the later stage of innovation evolution, it should undergo organisational changes and be assigned a federated alliance model to establish an alliance coordination committee with a certain degree of interactive control over the supporting firms. When the frequency of technological change is low, the alliance coordinating committee takes relatively strong control over the supporting firms as the best, and when the frequency is high, the degree of control over the supporting firms should be appropriately weakened.
Organization’s sustainability performance is influenced by its suppliers’ sustainability performance. This relationship makes sustainable supplier development a strategic competitive option for a ...buyer or focal organization. When considering sustainable supplier development practices (SSDPs) adoption, organizations have to balance and consider their limited financial resources and operational constraints. It becomes necessary to both select the best SSDPs set and investment allocation among the selected SSDP set such that the organization can maximize overall sustainability performance level. In this paper, an integrated formal modeling methodology using DEMATEL, the NK model, and multi-objective linear programming model is used support this objective. The proposed methodology is evaluated in a practical sustainable supply chain field study of an equipment manufacturing company in China. Through case study, we found that the interdependency among SSDPs must be considered in SSDPs selection and investment allocation problem. Theoretical, managerial and methodology implications, conclusions, and directions for future research are also presented.
PurposeStudies have documented the distinctive advantage of innovation ecosystems in integrating and recombining heterogeneous knowledge resources across firms' boundaries. However, hierarchical ...governance in the form of vertical integration is still preferred in many industries for organizing innovation, and the current literature touches little on the relative performance of different organizational structures (integrated firms vs innovation ecosystem) and the factors that lead firms to choose one over the other. The authors conjecture that structure of technological interdependence is one of such important factors. Using a computational experiment, the authors compare the innovation performance of ecosystems with integrated firms under different interdependency structures.Design/methodology/approachUsing the NKC model, the authors incorporate non-generic complementarities and modularity into the technological interdependence between different components. The authors compare four different types of technological interdependence (modular, hierarchical, nearly modular, and random).FindingsThe results show that integrated firms with centralized search demonstrate stable and consistent performance that is robust to the structure of technological interdependencies, but an ecosystem significantly outperforms integrated firms with centralized or decentralized when the products exhibit modular or nearly-modular structures.Originality/valueThis study sheds light on why an ecosystem often exhibits modular structures while vertical integration is prevalent in industries with complex technological interdependence. In addition, it shows the evolutionary nature of ecosystems and indicates how the cooperation and competition between actors shape the interdependence structure of ecosystems.
Functional effects of different mutations are known to combine to the total effect in highly nontrivial ways. For the trait under evolutionary selection ('fitness'), measured values over all possible ...combinations of a set of mutations yield a fitness landscape that determines which mutational states can be reached from a given initial genotype. Understanding the accessibility properties of fitness landscapes is conceptually important in answering questions about the predictability and repeatability of evolutionary adaptation. Here we theoretically investigate accessibility of the globally optimal state on a wide variety of model landscapes, including landscapes with tunable ruggedness as well as neutral 'holey' landscapes. We define a mutational pathway to be accessible if it contains the minimal number of mutations required to reach the target genotype, and if fitness increases in each mutational step. Under this definition accessibility is high, in the sense that at least one accessible pathway exists with a substantial probability that approaches unity as the dimensionality of the fitness landscape (set by the number of mutational loci) becomes large. At the same time the number of alternative accessible pathways grows without bounds. We test the model predictions against an empirical 8-locus fitness landscape obtained for the filamentous fungus Aspergillus niger. By analyzing subgraphs of the full landscape containing different subsets of mutations, we are able to probe the mutational distance scale in the empirical data. The predicted effect of high accessibility is supported by the empirical data and is very robust, which we argue reflects the generic topology of sequence spaces. Together with the restrictive assumptions that lie in our definition of accessibility, this implies that the globally optimal configuration should be accessible to genome wide evolution, but the repeatability of evolutionary trajectories is limited owing to the presence of a large number of alternative mutational pathways.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
This paper presents findings from a laboratory experiment on human decision making in a complex combinatorial task. We draw on the canonical NK model to depict tasks with varying complexity and find ...strong evidence for a behavioral model of adaptive search. Success narrows down search to the neighborhood of the status quo, whereas failure promotes gradually more exploratory search. Task complexity does not have a direct effect on behavior but systematically affects the feedback conditions that guide success-induced exploitation and failure-induced exploration. The analysis also shows that human participants were prone to overexploration, since they broke off the search for local improvements too early. We derive stylized decision rules that generate the search behavior observed in the experiment and discuss the implications of our findings for individual decision making and organizational search.
There has been an increasing interest to explore and gain knowledge about customer engagement behavior among academia and practitioners. Particularly, the value co-creation process in customer ...services is essential to explore the interaction structure. In this study, we applied the computational simulation of the NK model to identify the value co-creation process between service employees and customers in the service context. To specifically explore the dynamic interaction among them, we identified what kind of service is provided for what type of customers and when service performance improves according to the degree of interaction between service employees and customers. The simulations show that the greatest service value can be achieved when employees and customers jointly perform local search (90%) and long jump (10%). However, if both employees and customers jointly perform local search only, the service value can be stuck in a local optimum. In cases where employees and customers make their independent improvement, either through local search or long jump, the overall service value varies depending on the complexity of interactions between employees and customers. For example, the improvement in service value is the worst when employees and customers make long jumps at independent timings in high complex interactions. Our computational simulations offer visible experimental-based insights into understanding the value co-creation process with customers and promising results for customer service studies.
Random Boolean networks have been used widely to explore aspects of gene regulatory networks. As the name implies, traditionally the model has used a binary representation scheme. This paper uses a ...modified form of the model to systematically explore the effects of increasing the number of gene states. These random multi-valued networks are evolved within rugged fitness landscapes to explore their behavior. Results suggest the basic properties of the original model remain, regardless of the update scheme or fitness sampling method. Changes are seen in sensitivity to high levels of connectivity, the mutation rate and the ability to vary network size.
The concept of a fitness landscape is a powerful metaphor that offers insight into various aspects of evolutionary processes and guidance for the study of evolution. Until recently, empirical ...evidence on the ruggedness of these landscapes was lacking, but since it became feasible to construct all possible genotypes containing combinations of a limited set of mutations, the number of studies has grown to a point where a classification of landscapes becomes possible. The aim of this review is to identify measures of epistasis that allow a meaningful comparison of fitness landscapes and then apply them to the empirical landscapes in order to discern factors that affect ruggedness. The various measures of epistasis that have been proposed in the literature appear to be equivalent. Our comparison shows that the ruggedness of the empirical landscape is affected by whether the included mutations are beneficial or deleterious and by whether intragenic or intergenic epistasis is involved. Finally, the empirical landscapes are compared to landscapes generated with the rough Mt Fuji model. Despite the simplicity of this model, it captures the features of the experimental landscapes remarkably well.
Fitness landscapes map genotypes to their corresponding fitness under given environments and allow explaining and predicting evolutionary trajectories. Of particular interest is the landscape ...ruggedness or the unevenness of the landscape, because it impacts many aspects of evolution such as the likelihood that a population is trapped in a local fitness peak. Although the ruggedness has been inferred from a number of empirically mapped fitness landscapes, it is unclear to what extent this inference is affected by fitness estimation error, which is inevitable in the experimental determination of fitness landscapes. Here, we address this question by simulating fitness landscapes under various theoretical models, with or without fitness estimation error. We find that all eight examined measures of landscape ruggedness are overestimated due to imprecise fitness quantification, but different measures are affected to different degrees. We devise a method to use replicate fitness measures to correct this bias and show that our method performs well under realistic conditions. We conclude that previously reported fitness landscape ruggedness is likely upward biased owing to the negligence of fitness estimation error and advise that future fitness landscape mapping should include at least three biological replicates to permit an unbiased inference of the ruggedness.
We investigate the impact of the supply chain interdependence structure on network-level trust in the supply chain (i.e., supply chain trust). We adopt an opportunism-based definition of trust, ...according to which trust and opportunism are the opposite of one another, and conceptualize the supply chain as a complex adaptive system (CAS). We thus employ the NK framework to model the supply chain network as a set of interdependent partners (and their decisions) interacting among each other according to a specific pattern reflecting the overall supply chain interdependence structure. In particular, we argue that supply chain networks can reveal in practice the 10 patterns identified by Rivkin and Siggelkow (2007) in a recent study on patterned interactions in complex systems. Thus, we perform computational analysis to evaluate, for each considered interdependence pattern, the risk of opportunism by the participating firms, which allows us to compare the patterns on the level of supply chain trust. We show that supply chain trust is a positive (negative) function of the number of uninfluenced (uninfluential) partners, that are, partner firms whose decisions are not influenced by (do not influence) the decisions made by the remaining partners. We also find that, for each examined pattern, the higher the degree of interdependence in the supply chain, the lower supply chain trust.
•Doing impactful supply chain management research requires shifting the level of analysis from the dyad to the overall network;•We investigate the relationships between interdependence and network-level trust in the supply chain;•We employ the NK framework to model the supply chain as a set of interdependent partners and their decisions;•We measure network-level trust by the level of trust that, on average, supply chain firms hold in the remaining ones;•We investigate the differential influence that 10 supply chain interdependence patterns exerts on supply chain trust;•Decreasing (increasing) the number of uninfluencial (uninfluenced) partners and the degree of interdependence fosters trust.
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