Simulating value chain coordination with artificial life agents

The increasing use of information technology within and between companies yields changes in the predominant coordination mechanisms. On one hand it is argued that we witness an overall shift towards market-like coordination of business transactions, whereas others argue that we face more hierarchy-like coordination. In this paper a multi-agent system is described that globally coordinates a multiple step value chain either way by using local optimization rules of self-interested autonomous agents. In further research it will be analyzed how changes in setup parameters (e.g. transaction costs, cooperational behavior) will effect the predominant coordination mechanism among the artificial life agents.