Modelling Culture with Complex, Multi-dimensional, Multi-agent Systems

Culture plays a significant role in human civilizations as a key determinant of relationships and organization formation; however, its role, key properties, and mechanisms are not yet fully understood. This work explores culture and cultural modelling from a complex systems, multi-dimensional, and multi-agency standpoint. The need for performing such modelling and simulation is evident since in-vivo organizational experiments are costly, not easily generalizable, and require lengthy analyses that may not be feasible in critical situations. Exploring the role and influence of culture on organizations is the aim of this chapter, whereby definitions, dimensions, and experiments are introduced in order to show the evolution and emergence of culture as a complex, distributed, social system. This work contributes to culture studies by (a) adding to the literature of culture as a complex system, (b) presenting a new seven-dimensional model to describe and encapsulate culture, and (c) simulating cultural interactions using a multi-agent system of high-functioning agents that achieve an equilibrium of beliefs.