Modeling Uncertainty through Agent-Based Participatory Simulation: Implication to Businesses in China

China is a society that fosters complex social networks and they are considered powerful advantage in times of uncertainty. This article proposes agent-based modeling and simulation (ABMS) as a useful tool to analyze such complex relationships in China. It also reviews schools of thought on hard versus soft systems methodologies and brings together the fragmented literature on the nature of agent-based modeling, making the argument that participatory simulation is a distinct tool belonging to soft systems methodology, one which can simultaneously allow for the metrics of ‘hard’ decision sciences to be applied. This is a promising area of research in complex and highly dynamic systems and is particularly relevant to a country such as China due to its complexity and size.

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