A markovian-based simulation model for the evolution of employees’ emotional states during an organizational change

Abstract

This study aims to create a simulation model with which to analyse the spread of emotional states among the employees of an organization. The model takes into account the fact that workers are influenced by their co-workers and supervisors, and simultaneously analyses these interactions. The design of the simulation model follows a standard procedure: problem definition, data collection and configuration of model parameters, conceptual model, testing of the programmed model, and analysis of the results of the simulation. The resulting simulation model makes a novel contribution to the literature by providing social sciences researchers with a simple and efficient method of analysing the evolution and propagation of emotional states during an organizational change. This kind of approach is useful for research involving the simultaneous study of interaction between a number of employees.