SocLab: a framework for the modeling, simulation and analysis of power in social organizations

Abstract

This paper is a comprehensive presentation of a framework for the modeling, the simulation and the analysis of power relationships in social organizations, and more generally in systems of organized action. This framework relies on, and slightly extends, the Crozier and Freidber's sociology of organized action, which supports a methodology for understanding why, in an organizational context, people behave as they do. SocLab intends to complement the discursive statement of sociological analyses with a formal formulation easing the objectivization of findings. It consists of a meta-model of organizations, a model of bounded-rational social actors and analytical tools for the study of the internal properties of organizations.