The modeling and simulation of systems using computational techniques is one of the oldest problems to which digital computers have been applied. Targets of such modeling have included a wide variety of artificial, natural, and human systems, including industrial production systems; physical systems; complex mechanical artifacts; natural systems, such as meteorological phenomena; and human systems, such as economic systems and military force and conflict models. Approaches to simulation have covered an equally wide range, from equation-based abstractions to agent-based models. Human organizations present a unique combination of challenges to computational methods for simulation. This book describes some of these challenges, and some of the newer approaches to dealing with them, in an edited collection of papers discussing recent work on the computational simulation of organizations.

The book consists of 21 chapters by experts in the field. I would classify its contents into four broad categories. (The editors describe a slightly different classification in the introduction.) Chapters 2 through 4 can be characterized as “possibilities,” in that they discuss using organizational simulation as a means for exploring strategic visions or overarching improvements in organizations. The next four chapters (5 through 8) address models of individuals in organizations, acting in isolation or together. Chapter 5 is distinguished from the others in being a quite detailed and focused analysis of modeling individuals in organizations. This chapter is concerned largely with profile-based models of individuals, an approach that considers individuals in terms of their decision-making behavior as observable outputs, as opposed to the cognitive architectural approach, which attempts to model them in terms of their internal cognitive structures. The other three chapters (6 through 8) address one aspect or another of teamwork. Chapter 8, in particular, discusses cultural differences in team relationships and mechanisms; the particular focus of this chapter is national differences.

The next seven chapters (9 through 15) can be classified as “methods and techniques” papers. Each discusses a modeling technique or assessment question. Chapter 9 summarizes simulation experiments exploring relationships between organizational structure and performance. Chapter 10 relates the application of simulation techniques to a case study in the organization-focused modeling of warehouses. Chapters 11 through 13 describe narrative abstraction, agent-based modeling, and Petri nets, respectively. Chapter 14 is an account of research in the use of network methods and network-based metrics for assessing organization performance, and is notable in having a reasonably substantial description of the underlying research work. Chapter 15 surveys techniques and cognitive models drawn from artificial intelligence research.

The next group, consisting of four chapters (16 through 19), is concerned with applications in relatively novel areas. Chapter 16 surveys approaches to the modeling of posture, gait, and facial expressions in humans, an area that has seen much activity in recent years, mainly in computer graphics and animation. The subject of chapter 17 is the modeling of crowd behavior for military simulations, which receives a relatively detailed treatment here. Chapter 18 is a high-level summary of observations from experiences in developing systems using immersive simulation technology. Chapter 19 discusses the similar problem of game-based simulation, and describes the development process of, the deployment of, and improvements to the “America’s Army” online game.

Chapter 20 is concerned with distributed simulation and the high-level architecture for simulations for defense applications, while chapter 21 describes some lessons learned from individual and group interaction behavior in online games. The editors include these two chapters with the preceding group, under the rubric of “simulations and groups.”

The coverage of this collection is reasonably wide-ranging, though most individual chapters discuss relatively narrow parts of the subject. Given the level of treatment and the nature of its contents, perhaps Advances in organizational simulation is a more appropriate capsule description of the volume. The book is readable, and generally avoids in-depth scientific presentations of research, which means that researchers and students in organization science and computational organization theory will find it useful, mainly as a pointer to recent research directions and applications. On the other hand, it would be suitable and informative reading for professionals and technical management personnel who want to learn about recent developments in organizational simulation.