Abstract:The research field of social simulation comprises many topics and research directions. A previous study about the early years indicated that the community has evolved into a di erentiated discipline. This paper investigates the recent development of social simulation as reflected in Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation (JASSS) publications from to . By using citation analysis, we identify the most influential publications and study the characteristics of citations. Additionally, we analyze the development of the field with respect to research topics and their structure in a co-citation analysis. The citation characteristics support the continuing highly multidisciplinary character of JASSS. Prominently cited are methodological papers and books, standards, and NetLogo as the main simulation tool. With respect to the focus of this research, we observe continuity in topics such as opinion dynamics and the evolution of cooperation. While some topics disappeared such as learning, new subjects emerged such as marriage formation models and tools and platforms. Overall, one can observe a maturing inter-and multidisciplinary scientific community in which both methodological issues and specific social science topics are discussed and standards have emerged.
Using the agent-based model of Miller et al. (), which depicts how di erent types of individuals' memory a ect the formation and performance of organizational routines, we show how a replicated simulation model can be used to develop theory. We also assess how standards, such as the ODD (Overview, Design concepts, and Details) protocol and DOE (design of experiments) principles, support the replication, evaluation, and further analysis of this model. Using the verified model, we conduct several simulation experiments as examples of di erent types of theory development. First, we show how previous theoretical insights can be generalized by investigating additional scenarios, such as mergers. Second, we show the potential of replicated simulation models for theory refinement, such as analyzing in-depth the relationship between memory functions and routine performance or routine adaptation.
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