S(t)imulating Interesting Business Communication Research: An Agent-Based Modeling Primer

Business communication scholars have long been interested in how micro-level interactions among employees and members shape the emergence of important macro-level outcomes, such as organizational network formation and norms. Yet, the availability of methods to study emergence has lagged, leaving authors with limited options for examining these dynamics directly. In this paper, we describe how agent-based modeling (ABM) can help address this challenge, both by supplementing existing research and prompting interesting new questions. In doing so, we provide a detailed, albeit highly simplified, example of an ABM focusing on various organizational and business communication dynamics, namely, leader-member exchange (LMX), message quality, and message quantity. The model is intended as an introduction for business communication researchers interested in incorporating ABM into their own research agendas or simply learning more. Because the organizational and business arenas are rife with emergent phenomena that have not yet been modeled or examined in a quantitative manner, we believe that this method holds widespread utility in generating new questions and insights.