Market opportunities, customer desires and purchasing selectiveness modelling in multi-layered cellular automata: A study case on organizational survivability

Abstract

The present work aims to contribute to a better understanding of the dynamics of organizational competition and survival in a supply chain network market context, while highlighting the potential of multi-layered cellular automata models as frameworks for accommodating increasing levels of complexity. More particularly, the implementation of inter-layer rules associated to k-bit words modelling of market opportunities, customer desires and purchasing selectiveness, and their impact on the dynamics of an evolutionary “ecology” of suppliers, competing organizations, and customers, following a complex adaptive systems approach is described and illustrated through a study case on organizational survivability. The implications of the study results—reflecting the interplay between market environment, competitors’ strategic choice, and corresponding ability to succeed, survive crises and proliferate—are then discussed and the main aims of the work ahead highlighted.