HURLAB-v0 (HUman Resource Laboratoy):
An Agent-Based Model

Posada, Marta; Martín-Sierra, Celia; and Perez, Elena (2017) 'Effort, Satisfaction and Outcomes in Organisations' Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation 20 (2) 9. doi: 10.18564/jasss.3418

Preliminary version: Marta Posada, Celia Martín-Sierra, and Elena Pérez. 11th Artificial Economics Conference. Porto (Portugal) 2015

Description (using ODD Protocol) of HURLAB-0 model

OVERVIEW

PURPOSE

HURLAB-0 (HUman Resource LABoratory-version 0) is an agent-based model to link Human Resource Management and performance within different formal organisational structure frameworks. It is inspired on Guest’s (1997), and, in order to model the boxes of Guest’s (1997) model, we have based on previous ABMs research (Dal Forno and Merlone 2002, Dal Forno and Merlone 2004), and on HRM empirical research (Griffeth et al. 2000).

Our purpose is to analyze: (i) the emergence of an organisational culture and its relationship with formal organisational structures; (ii) the reduction of voluntary turnover by selecting effective HRP.

REFERENCES:

Dal Forno, A., Merlone, U. (2002): A multi-agent simulation platform for modeling perfectly rational and bounded-rational agents in organizations, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation 5 (2): 1460-7425

Dal Forno, A., Merlone, U.: (2004) Personnel Turnover in Organizations: an Agent-Based Simulation Model, Nonlinear Dynamics, Psychology, and Life Sciences 8 (2): 205-230.

Guest, D.E. (1997). 'Human resource management and performance: a review and re-search agenda'. lnternational Journal of Human Resource Management, 8: 263-276.

ENTITIES, STATE VARIABLES AND SCALES

HURLAB-0 is populated by two types of bounded-rational agents: employees and organization.

PROCESS OVERVIEW AND SCHEDULING

HURLAB-v0 interface:

Relationship interface- process overview:

Relationship process overview- procedures- variables:

to setup ;------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
clear-all
setup-jobs ;; to inicializate the jobs (job 0, ....job m-1)
create-structure-formal
setup-workers ;; to inicializate the workers (worker m, ....worker n+m)
link-workers-TO-jobs ;; to assign jobs (level and wage) to workers and place workers on patches
if (formal-organizational-configuration = "strong matrix" or formal-organizational-configuration = "balanced matrix") [create-team]
calculate-staff-characteristics
reset-ticks ;; Resets the tick counter to zero
end

to go ;------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
while [ticks < time]
[
involuntary-turnover-decisions
voluntary-turnover-decisions
staffing-requirements
setup-new-workers
update-empty_jobs-with-workers
update-workers-variables
calculate-staff-characteristics
tick ; advances the tick counter by one and updates all plots
]
stop
end

DESIGN CONCEPTS

■ Emergence (a summary of emergent phenomena from the interaction of the agents).
Effort (from the interaction between employees), Performance and Satisfaction (from the interaction between employees and organisation)

■ Adaptation (how the agents adapt their behaviour to their and their environments current state)
Employees adapt their effort intensity by conisdering both their behaviour (null, shrinkind, averager, comparator, replicator, null). For more details see: Dal Forno and Merlone (2002)

■ Fitness/Objectives (a summary of the agents' goals)
The goal of the organization is both to obtain a high organisation-performance dismissing the low-performance employees, and to retain high-performance employees.

■ Prediction (how the agents predict the consequences of their decisions),
Neither the organisation nor the employees predict the consequences of their decisions, only observe their consequences

■ Sensing (environmental variables perceived by the agents, which might include their own variables)
Human Resource Management practices influences the employees' individual satisfaction.

■ Interactions, stochasticity (if present, and the reasons for it). The interactions between employess take within formal organization structures (functional, balanced matrix and strong matrix). When employees are grouped into teams, the interactions take place dependeding on the leadership (egocentered and democratic)

■ Collectives (whether the agents are grouped socially) and Observation (how data are gathered from the model)

DETAILS

INIZIALIZATION

By the interface and by random generation

■ INPUT DATA

■ SUBMODELS

■ DEFINE ORGANIZATION STRUCTURE

ask patches [set pcolor white]

                  create-jobs number_of_jobs 

                  [ set shape "circle"

                  set color black

                  set size 0.2]

■ CREATE STRUCTURE FORMAL


                create links between jobs

■ SET UP WORKERS


                  set number_of_workers number_of_jobs

                  ;--------------------------------- 

                  set-default-shape workers "person" ;; 

                  create-workers number_of_workers                ;; to create the workers: worker n, worker n+2,....worker m

                  [ 

                  ;-------------------------imput variables

                  define-demograhic-workers-variables        ; workers variables are randomly generated

                  define-professional-workers-variables

                  ;-------------------------endorsement 

                  define-endorsements

                  calculate-E_list                ;calculating initial value of the endorsement 

                  ;-------------------------behaviour

                  set behaviour population ;INITIAL HOMOGENEOUS POPULATION

                  ;-------------------------outcomes

                  define-effort

                  define-individual-satisfaction

                  define-individual-performance

                  define-color 

                  ]

■ LINK WORKERS TO JOBS


                set i 0

                  set j number_of_workers

                  ;;***************LINKS WORKERS TO JOBS ***************************** 

                  while [i < number_of_jobs] 

                  [ask worker j [set level [job_level] of job i

                  set area [job_area] of job i

                  set department [job_department] of job i

                  set project_manager [job_project_manager] of job i

                  setxy ([xcor] of job i) ( [ycor] of job i )  

                  create-link-to job i

                  ] 

                  set i i + 1

                  set j j + 1]

■ CREATE TEAM


                create-the-team-mebers

                  calculate-team-performance

                  team-star
                ;-------LINKS IN WHOLE

                  if team-leadership = "democratic" [team-whole]

■ INVOLUNTARY TURNOVER DECISIONS


                ask workers with [effort < firing-level]

                  [heritage_&_replacement_from_die_workers_TO_empty_jobs

                  die];;------------------------------------------ if effort < x, employee is dismissed by the organization

                  

                  set turnover_involuntary_percent turnover_involuntary / number_of_workers * 100

■ VOLUNTARY TURNOVER DECISIONS


                ask workers with [individual_satisfaction  < satisfaction-to-stay ]

                  [heritage_&_replacement_from_die_workers_TO_empty_jobs

                  die];;------------------------------------------------------------ if e_value < 0, employee leaves the organization

                  

                  set turnover_voluntary_percent turnover_voluntary / number_of_workers * 100

■ STAFFING REQUIREMENTS


                create list with empty jobs

■ SET UP NEW WORKERS


                set up workers

■ UPDATE EMPTY JOBS WITH WORKERS


                new-workers-on-empty-jobs

■ UPDATE WORKERS VARIABLES


                 update-demographic-variables   ;update age, children and, therefore, satisfaction

                  if structure_formal = 1        ;update effort and performance

[ supervisor-effect

update-effect-star

if team-leadership = "democratic" [update-effect-whole]

]

■ CALCULATE STAFF CHARACTERISTICS


                effort avarege, performance average, satisfaction average and others

HURLAB-v0 (HUman Resource Laboratoy): An Agent-Based Model

Description (using ODD Protocol) of HURLAB-0 model

HURLAB-v0 (HUman Resource Laboratoy):
An Agent-Based Model