The agency role of simulation models in model-building groups
通过两项系统动力学群体建模项目的民族志研究，发现模拟模型能通过引发认知冲击，促使参与者在案例推理与模型推理间切换，从而发挥主动代理作用。
Simulation models, in particular System Dynamics (SD) models, can be used in a group modelling setting to communicate, integrate, learn, collaborate, organize knowledge and derive new insights. Such models can play the roles of conceptual integrators, representations, learning or predictive tools. In this ethnographic study of two in-depth SD group modelling projects we discovered that SD models can be active agents in the group-model building process by initiating cognitive transition on participants’ (model and case based) modes of reasoning. We found that the cognitive transition was achieved through a series of surprises or shocks that refuted participants’ prior conceptions and forced them to switch between case-based and model-based reasoning during the model-building process. Based on these insights, we present a framework that describes how simulation models change the mode of reasoning in group modelling project and explains the model’s agency role. The study addresses the calls from earlier OR articles to contribute with more case studies using an ethnographic method looking into simulation artefact agency.