Abstract
Simulations based on the NK model are carried out to address team member replacements that follow tweaking (i.e., gradual changes) of the strategy of the team leader. For simple teams in which the team members do not interact, team member replacements occur independently. However, for teams in which team members interact with other team members, team member replacements occur as cascades. In these cascades, the replacement of one team member triggers the replacement of another, which triggers the replacement of yet another, and so on. These cascades of team member replacements are largest for teams with intermediate complexity, in which each member interacts with between \({\frac{1}{4}}\) and \({\frac{1}{2}}\) of the other team members. The cascades are roughly independent of team size, and so smaller teams are more volatile in that the cascades affect a larger fraction of the team.
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Daniel J. Lacks is the C. Benson Branch Professor of Chemical Engineering at CaseWestern Reserve University. Prof. Lacks received his B.S. in chemical engineering from Cornell University in 1987, and his Ph.D. in chemistry from Harvard University in 1992. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at MIT from 1993–1994, Prof. Lacks was on the faculty of the chemical engineering department at Tulane University from 1994–2003. Prof. Lacks joined the faculty at Case in 2003. His research interests involve the simulation of nonequilibrium processes, ranging from physical processes such as fluid flow and fracture in glasses, to nonphysical processes such as biological evolution and chemical process optimization.
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Lacks, D.J. Dynamics of Team Member Replacements from Complex Systems Theory. Comput Math Organiz Theor 10, 335–347 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10588-005-6285-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10588-005-6285-z