The Impact of a Word of Mouth Mechanism on an Adoption of Changes in the Industrial Organization

In modern organizations, adaptation to the rapid changes in the market is a prerequisite to survival and growth. Many empirical studies have confirmed the assertion that employees’ attitudinal and behavioural reactions to change play a major role in success or failure of changes in their organizations. In this study, the process of the spread of an information about change by word of mouth (w-om) mechanism is presented. The effects of w-o-m mechanism on the change adoption is investigated, because this is a crucial tool in this sphere. The w-o-m communication has been supported by an external field (meetings, leaflets, etc.) and the leaders. Cellular automaton is used as a modelling tool, because it allows to analyse the dynamics of changes in views and attitudes in social groups based on local interactions between people in small informal groups. Informal groups of employees are represented by the von Neumann’s neighbourhood of radius r = 1 (4-element neighbourhood) and Moore’s neighbourhood of radius r = 1 (8-element neighbourhood). The employees’ environment in the model is shown as a discrete twodimensional space, which consists of a finite square lattice of cells. Simulations were carried out for a different density of lattice. This possibility allows to take into account the natural fact, that informal groups have a different size, or a larger or smaller number of w-o-m contacts. Precise results of experiments showed high usefulness of cellular automata approach in the discussed area.