期刊名称：Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation
印刷版ISSN：1460-7425
出版年度：2010
卷号：13
期号：3
页码：1-19
DOI：10.18564/jasss.1614
出版社：University of Surrey, Department of Sociology
摘要：This paper describes how a work group and a newcomer mutually adapt. We study two types of simulated groups that need an extra worker, one group because a former employee had left the group and one group because of its workload. For both groups, we test three conditions, newcomers being specialists, newcomers being generalists, and a control condition with no newcomer. We hypothesise that the group that needs an extra worker because of its workload will perform the best with a newcomer being a generalist. The group that needs an extra worker because a former employee had left the group, will perform better with a specialist newcomer. We study the development of task allocation and performance, with expertise and motivation as process variables. We use two performance indicators, the performance time of the slowest agent that indicates the speed of the group and the sum of performance of all agents to indicate labour costs. Both are indicative for the potential benefit of the newcomer. Strictly spoken the results support our hypotheses although the differences between the groups with generalists and specialists are negligible. What really mattered was the possibility for a newcomer to fit in.
关键词：Task Allocation; Group Processes; Psychological Theory; Small Groups; Self-Organisation
