Cognition and Complexity

Contemporary knowledge work places create tremendous challenges for employees and managers. High levels of “cognitive capital” are required to cope with the rapidly evolving complexity of work. This chapter presents an agent-based model of the dynamics of cognitive capital in a simulated workplace. Factors such as stress, sleep insufficiency, and excessive work function to reduce the cognitive capital among workers. The cognitive capital in this microworld is tracked among agents suffering from stress, sleep insufficiency and excessive work. The authors also explore how cognitive capital changes under varying cognitive enrichment scenarios. Simulation results reveal a range of behaviors typical of complex systems, showing evidence of periods of both stability and instability. The authors also see symmetry breaking behavior as the dynamics of cognitive capital create drastic change.