Pilgrim, Charlie;
Guo, Weisi;
Johnson, Samuel;
(2020)
Organisational Social Influence on Directed Hierarchical Graphs, from Tyranny to Anarchy.
Scientific Reports
, 10
, Article 4388. 10.1038/s41598-020-61196-8.
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Abstract
Coordinated human behaviour takes place within a diverse range of social organisational structures, which can be thought of as power structures with “managers” who influence “subordinates”. A change in policy in one part of the organisation can cause cascades throughout the structure, which may or may not be desirable. As organisations change in size, complexity and structure, the system dynamics also change. Here, we consider majority rule dynamics on organisations modelled as hierarchical directed graphs, where the directed edges indicate influence. We utilise a topological measure called the trophic incoherence parameter, q, which effectively gauges the stratification of power structure in an organisation. We show that this measure bounds regimes of behaviour. There is fast consensus at low q (e.g. tyranny), slow consensus at mid q (e.g. democracy), and no consensus at high q (e.g. anarchy). These regimes are investigated analytically, numerically and empirically with diverse case studies in the Roman Army, US Government, and a healthcare organisation. Our work demonstrates the usefulness of the trophic incoherence parameter when considering models of social influence dynamics, with widespread consequences in the design and analysis of organisations.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Organisational Social Influence on Directed Hierarchical Graphs, from Tyranny to Anarchy |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1038/s41598-020-61196-8 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-61196-8 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences > Experimental Psychology |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10166093 |
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