Decision Efficiency and Knowledge Emergence Tradeoffs in Collectivistic Leadership: An Agent-Based Simulation

Abstract

Teams solve complex problems by combining expertise, yet leveraging this specialized knowledge requires time-intensive information sharing, producing a tradeoff between making decisions efficiently and knowledge emergence, the process through which individual knowledge becomes held at the team level. Using agent-based simulation, Grand et al. modeled learning and sharing processes that result in knowledge emergence. We extend this model across two simulation studies, incorporating shared and collective leadership theories to examine how authority and communication influence the tradeoff between efficiency and knowledge emergence. The simulations show who is granted decision-making authority and speaking time influence the balance of this tradeoff.