Evolution of collaboration in temporary project teams: An agent-based modeling and simulation approach

As construction projects get larger and more complex, it has become clear that no single entity can have complete knowledge of or the abilities to handle all matters. Therefore, collaborative practices among heterogeneous individuals, which are temporarily congregated to perform a project, are required to accomplish common project objectives. On the basis of this premise, this paper introduces an agent-based simulation of the evolution of collaboration within interorganizational networks of construction project teams from game theory and social network perspectives. The simulation confirmed that the fewer individuals are familiar with others in the network, and thereby aware of networks they are involved in, the more time it takes for networks to reach stable states. It was also found that the tendency of cohesion increased as the effort to form relationships with outside partners rose. Furthermore, the results indicated that the more effort needed to form relationships with those from other organizations, the less efficient the networks were. The model of organizational processes developed in this study explicitly incorporated a representation of individual decision makers and their interactions from both active and dynamic standpoints. This model represents a contribution to enhancing the understanding of the affect of organizational aspects on project management and to facilitating the development of tools for investigating organizations in construction.