Title: Team Learning and Performance via Assign/Appraise Dynamics

Speaker: Wenjun Mei (UC Santa Barbara)

Abstract: In this talk we will propose models of team learning in
groups of individuals who collectively execute a sequence of tasks. The
individuals' actions are determined by individual skill levels and
networks of interpersonal appraisals and influence. The closely-related
proposed models have increasing complexity, starting with a centralized
manager-based assignment and learning model, and finishing with a
social model of interpersonal appraisal, assignments, learning, and
influences. We will show how rational optimal behavior arises along the
task sequence and discuss conditions of suboptimality. Our models are
grounded in replicator dynamics from evolutionary games, influence
networks from mathematical sociology, and transactive memory systems
from organization science.