Towards Self-organizing Bureaucracies
Abstract
This paper proposes self-organization as a method to improve the efficiency and adaptability of bureaucracies and similar social systems. Bureaucracies are described as networks of agents, where the main design principle is to reduce local "friction" to increase local and global "satisfaction". Following this principle, solutions are proposed for improving communication within bureaucracies, sensing public satisfaction, dynamic modification of hierarchies, and contextualization of procedures. Each of these reduces friction between agents (internal or external), increasing the efficiency of bureaucracies. "Random agent networks" (RANs), novel computational models, are introduced to illustrate the benefits of self-organizing bureaucracies.
Cite
@article{arxiv.nlin/0603045,
title = {Towards Self-organizing Bureaucracies},
author = {Carlos Gershenson},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:nlin/0603045},
year = {2008}
}
Comments
22 pages, 13 figures, related work at http://homepages.vub.ac.be/~cgershen/sos/ v2. Added section presenting "random agent networks" model and simulation results