Self-organizing cooperative dynamics in government extended enterprises

摘要

This dissertation describes an effort to test five hypotheses posed by a novel theory of the dynamics of cooperation among autonomous organizations in networks called Government Extended Enterprises (GEEs). The proposed theory holds that cooperation decisions are the result of the interaction of four canonical forces---Sympathy, Trust, Fear and Greed. The research used a computational simulation to examine information sharing decisions in a series of key decision points (KDPs) in three case studies, comprising a total of 185 interactions. Content analysis techniques were used to analyze documentary evidence from a variety of authoritative sources. An open coding process transformed this information into inputs to a custom-built, game theoretic simulation of interactions among boundedly rational actors across 17 KDPs. The simulation, which included a set of random factors, executed 10,000 iterations of the complete scenario within a Stag Hunt game (approximately 1.5 million records). Exploratory data analysis of the output and application of nonparametric statistical processes found that: 1) the output data were not normally distributed; 2) strong support exists for three of the hypotheses (cooperation is positively correlated with actors' levels of Sympathy and Trust and negatively correlated with actors' levels of Fear); 3) moderate support exists for the fourth (cooperation is negatively correlated with actors' levels of Greed); 4) the fifth hypothesis (cooperation is correlated with history of behavior) is not needed to explain observed behavior; and 5) significant interactions exist both among pairs of each force and each force when paired with a fifth variable, decision making strategy. These results will form the basis for: 1) subsequent analyses of additional cases; 2) development of an agent-based simulation using simple behavioral rules; 3) development of training programs for organizational leaders that enable them to recognize how to promote and foster the inter-organizational cooperation required to achieve important public goals; and 4) development of reliable leading indicators of a network's level of the Boardman-Sauser characteristic "Belonging."