Study On Organizational Learning Of Enterprise Based On Multi-Agent Systems

Since the 21 st century, China has entered into the development stage of building the well-off society in all-round way. At this development stage, while the China's domestic market capacity is expanding rapidly, the uncertainty of China's domestic market is increasing substantially as well. Studying the market becomes a compulsory course of Chinese enterprises in this condition.In 2001, China joined the WTO. The global foreign transnational giants are entering into the China's domestic market in droves. Another compulsory course of Chinese enterprises is to learn the global foreign transnational giants' core competencies and tacit knowledge on which these giants rely to dominate the international market.Both of these compulsory courses belong to the areas of enterprise organizational learning. The late 1990s, Senge's learning organization theory which based on five disciplines spread into China, and for a while, the Chinese enterprises had set off an upsurge of building a learning-oriented enterprise. However, the results were not satisfactory. This shows that Chinese enterprises have enthusiasm to implement organizational learning. Without the guidance of organizational learning theory which is suitable for Chinese enterprises, the organizational learning of Chinese enterprises is difficult to achieve the desired results.Creating the organizational learning theory which is suitable for Chinese enterprises is the task of Chinese scholars. The researches on the organizational learning are the international academic research hot spots. For the Chinese scholars, the aims of researches on organizational learning are not only to offer the theoretical guidance for the Chinese enterprises to engage in the organizational learning, but also to meet their own development needs: on the one hand, they need to keep up with their international counterpart on the research hot spots to avoid research in the field that out-dated; on the other hand, this emerging field of study is likely to generate the hope of a breakthrough for China's academia.The researches on the organizational learning started from 1950s. After the concept (organizational learning) incubation stage, the theory (organizational learning theory) incubation stage, and the theory development stage, the researches on the organizational learning have reached the prosperity stage. However, this prosperity of the researches on the organizational learning is showed as the abundance of quantity, but not as the maturity of the research model. So the researches on the organizational learning are still in the jungle state.Through the in-depth study of the status quo of the researches on the organizational learning, this paper has recognized that the root causes which cause the current state of the researches on the organizational learning is that the organizational learning is a complex phenomenon of adaptation. The current research model is built on the basis of the traditional simple reduction theory which considers that anything is just the sum of all parts of it. This situation leads to the inevitable defects in the current research on the organizational learning. Those defects not only exist in the research content, but also exist in the research methods. The defects in the research content embody in the two areas: first, the researches focus on the internal situations of the organizational learning, and ignore the external situations; second, the researches focus on the organizational learning of the individual enterprises, and ignore the organizational learning of the enterprises which act at a group and inevitably interaction exist between of them. The defects in the research methods also embody in the two areas: first, there are too many qualitative researches, but there are only a few quantitative researches; second, there's little emulation in the organizational learning researches.This paper hopes to achieve the breakthroughs both in the researches content and in the research methods.For the research content, this paper will study the external situation as an important research area, and will study the organizational learning of the enterprises which act as a group and inevitably the interactions exist between of them. Based on the above considerations, combined with the actual situations of the Chinese enterprises organizational learning, this paper raises two basic learning mode of the enterprises organizational learning: one is the market-oriented trial and error mode; the other is the rivals-oriented imitative mode.For the development of enterprise organizations, the market is the main content of the business environment. If the market is uncertain, the enterprise must carry out the enterprise organizational learning. As for the nature of the market, the current mainstream economics implied such assumption: market is certain. Only based on such assumption, the mainstream economics can carry out a balanced analysis. There is no room for enterprise to carry out the organizational learning in a research mode based on the balanced analysis.This paper finds that the nature of the market is uncertain. The uncertainty embodies in seven areas. In the uncertain market, enterprises must carry out the market-oriented organizational learning. As there is uncertainty, the enterprise's organizational learning inevitably has errors. Therefore, the enterprise's market-oriented organizational learning must be the type of trial and error. This paper explains the meanings of the market-oriented trial and error enterprise organizational learning mode, divides this mode into three types according to the reasons for the errors, and designs the processes of these three types.Inevitably, the competitions exist between the enterprises in the same market, whether these competitions are pure competitions, or mixed with the cooperation between the competitions. Under the condition of bounded rationality and heterogeneity of enterprises, the enterprises must carry out the organizational learning. As for the nature of the enterprises, the current mainstream economics implied two assumptions: Completely rationality and homogeneity of enterprises. But with the deepening of the awareness, bounded rationality and heterogeneity of enterprises are becoming the new mainstream viewpoints.This paper finds that the nature of the enterprises is bounded rationality and heterogeneity. The bounded rationality of enterprises embodies in three areas, and heterogeneity of enterprises embodies in five areas. Since bounded rationality and heterogeneity, the enterprises must carry out rivals-oriented organizational learning. The rivals -oriented organizational learning must be imitative. This paper explains the meanings of the rivals-oriented imitative enterprise organizational learning mode, divides this mode into four types, and designs the processes of these four types.The breakthroughs in the research methods are the adoption of the idea of emulation. The logical basis for the feasibility of the emulation is the similarity between complex adaptive systems. The reason why the use of such methods is that the organizational learning is a complex phenomenon of adaptation. In this paper, the emulation model is a multi-agent emulation model.This paper constructs the basic ideas of designing the emulation model. And carries out the emulation study for the two main types of enterprises organizations learning mode. The results have proved the conclusions of this paper. The first conclusion is that the uncertainty of the market forces the enterprises carries out the market-oriented trial and error organizational learning. The second conclusion is that the bounded rationality and heterogeneity of enterprises forces the enterprises carry out rivals-oriented imitative organizational learning. This paper also carries out the case study which select phenomenon of the enterprises organizational learning in China's auto industry since China joined WTO in 2001. The analysis is based on four aspects which include the analysis of market uncertainty, the analysis of enterprises' bounded rationality and heterogeneity, the analysis of market-oriented trial and error enterprises learning organizations, and the analysis of rivals-oriented imitative enterprise organizational learning. Such an analysis framework can be used as the basic framework of the case analysis of the enterprise organizational learning in specific industries.