Inquisitiveness: distributing rational thinking

Abstract

Purpose-This study aims at redefining bounded rationality on the basis of a more socialized view of the individual. In doing so, it introduces inquisitiveness as a key disposition that some team members use to assemble and integrate knowledge when solving problems. Design/methodology/approach-Using an agent-based computational simulation, this research models different simulated employees working together in ad hoc teams to solve problems. Findings-Results show that inquisitiveness may work as an efficiency driver that, when present, economizes on knowledge needed by team members to solve problems. In addition to that, results also show that environments with many problems are more suitable for inquisitive individuals to be effective. Originality/value-Following the late Herbert Simon, the article takes the stance that rationality should be redefined as a socially-oriented process and introduces inquisitiveness as one-although probably not the only one-of the characteristics that help individuals and teams to make rational decisions.

Agent-based models of bounded rationality

“…The following two papers (Herath et al, 2017;Bardone and Secchi, 2017) model BR as a social process, where limits of rationality move in relation to social interactions. This more socialized version should be explored further to gain a better understanding of how the social environment affects individual decision-making.…”

“…Typical agents for organization research are, for example, employees, managers and/or executives of an organization (e.g. in this issue: Bardone and Secchi, 2017;Lorscheid and Meyer, 2017;Richards, 2017); intelligence units such as teams or departments (e.g. in this issue: Herath et al, 2017;Sreekanth and Roy, 2017); up to entire firms competing in a market (e.g.…”

“…Here, the modeling and the empirical approaches fuse together to build simulation models that do not necessarily belong to one or the other. In fact, the emphasis of the "social" aspect is a result of using ABM, but it is not a typical aspect of any of the original models of BR (Bardone and Secchi, 2017;Herath et al, 2017) -with the only exception of the late Simon (1990Simon ( , 1993.…”

“…In the latest among their articles "Inquisitiveness: Distributing Rational Thinking", Bardone and Secchi (2017)[2] explore the social domain of BR by extending Simon's idea that individuals are "docile" -i.e. they have the attitude of making decisions based on advice, information and recommendations coming from others.…”

Cognitive attunement in the face of organizational plasticity

“…3 This happens, actually, around the start, and precisely when step/tick= 10. 4 Proximity is kept constant in this simulation but it can be made to vary, as usually happens in ABM (e.g., Secchi and Gullekson, 2016;Bardone and Secchi, 2017). 5 These are α = 0.01, 1 − β = 0.95.…”