Agent-Based Modelling of Pragmatic Legitimacy as Organizational Conflict Control

Abstract

Pragmatic legitimacy drives the organization to minimize conflicts by increasing the felt need satisfaction of employees. As a conflict control, Pragmatic Legitimacy Model (PLM) is anchored on the premise that organizational behaviours are desirable within socially constructed system that caters employees’ interests. An adaptation of Joshua Epstein’s Model of Civil Violence (2002) reflected as Rebellion Model in Netlogo v. 5.2.1, the model-simulation depicts that the strength of the pragmatic legitimacy does not depend only on the number of employee who are satisfied but on the degree on which the organization was able to control that complex need of each employee which leads to their satisfaction. Thus, for pragmatic legitimacy to be beneficial, the organization must direct less in specific benefits for an individual employee and, instead, more responsive to the employees’ larger interest.