Saad Alqithami

Modeling emergent network organizations

Fervent and agile communication on social networking sites and in virtual organizations provides opportunities for potential issues to trigger individuals into individual action as well as the attraction and mobilization of like-minded individuals into an organization that is both physically and virtually emergent. Examples are the rapid pace of Arab Spring and the diffusion rate of the occupy movement. Previous organizational models lack the representational power to model spontaneous exigencies of a network organization that accounts for rapid rates of dissemination in impromptu networks. This model, therefore, is conceived in a life cycle for a prototypical, emergent networked organization and description of operations therein from formation to dissolution. After describing the life cycle, this article offers insights for a model of a successful emergent organization and an implemented example of a spacecraft organization of satellites.

Ubiquity of network organizations paradigmatic perspective and synergistic effect

Human organizations that have begun to rely on networks for collaboration are already prolific. Networked collaboration is highly beneficial in many group activity including mixed teams of humans and agents. The prospect of understanding complex interactions on network organizations has prompted us to develop a paradigm serving as a reference model for organizations of networked individuals. In this paper, we present salient components suggested to comprise network organizations. Network properties are central for incorporating a spectrum of collaboration styles that is outlined in our paradigm. We have introduced synergy as a specific network effect that embodies collaboration, which in turn has the potential to enhance performance at various levels of an organization as well as the overall productivity of it.

Network organization paradigm

Fervent communication on social networking sites provides opportunities for potential issues to trigger individuals into individual action as well as the attraction and mobilization of like-minded individuals into an organization that is both physically and virtually emergent. Examples are the rapid pace of Arab Spring and the diffusion rate of the Occupy Movement. We intend to view this as a complex adaptive system where diverse agents perform various actions without adherence to a predefined structure. The achievement of joint actions will be a result of continual interactions between them that shape a dynamic network. Agents may form an ad hoc organization based on a dynamic network of interactions for the purpose of achieving a long-term objective, which we termed as a Network Organization (NO).

Architectonic elucidation for a network organization

There are many actual groups that rely on networks to organize their activities. Arab Spring and Science Teams are two examples. One of our original motivations in this work was to build models that explain and understand how these groups form and operate. We have recognized that there are many environments that do not yet take full advantage of network features (e.g., electric and water supply coops). This prompted our second motivation to propose an automation model using networks for the latter group. We then wanted to combine our motivations to conceive of a unified model of network organizations. A unified model seemed to be limited to requirements of specific domains. In order to extricate ourselves from domains, we considered modeling at a more generalized level that cut across domains. The best way to formulate this was to consider a perspective that would model a generic network organization. This perspective came to be considered, in this paper, as a paradigm. For network centricity in this paradigm, synergy and social capital are introduced as specific network effects to enhance performance at various levels of an organization.