O ALTRUÍSMO NAS ORGANIZAÇÕES: INTERAÇÃO E SELEÇÃO NATURAL

Mário Aquino Alves, Herbert Kimura, Leonardo Fernando Cruz Basso and Elizabeth Krauter

Anais do XXXII Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 32th Brazilian Economics Meeting] from ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pósgraduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics]

Abstract: The objective of this article is to investigate whether, despite of the goal of utility maximization defended by the neo-classic economic theory, the altruism can prevail inside organizations. Initially, one brief discussion of the altruism will be presented, analyzing this concept from some perspectives, from its sociological roots, its deployments in the organizational theory, passing through approaches from biology and economy. It is discussed that the evolution dynamics of the biology and the mechanism of the game theory make possible the construction of a mathematical structure that, under determined premises, serves as a useful model to describe the process of the prevalence of the altruism in the organizations. Through simulations using the mathematical model, we can identify that, given the conditions of the prisoner's dilemma and the assumptions of unconditional imitation, the altruism can survive in an organizational environment. In addition, the model shows that the organizations can be infected by the altruistic behavior: egoistic individuals can either be excluded from the group due to lack of adaptation to the environment or try to imitate the behavior of the altruists to make possible his survival.

JEL-codes: D64 A12 C71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.anpec.org.br/encontro2004/artigos/A04A093.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:anp:en2004:093

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
Secretaria da ANPEC Rua Tiradentes, 17 - Ingá Niterói, RJ 24210-510 Brazil

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Anais do XXXII Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 32th Brazilian Economics Meeting] from ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pósgraduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics]
Address: Secretaria da ANPEC Rua Tiradentes, 17 - Ingá Niterói, RJ 24210-510 Brazil
Contact information at EDIRC.
Series data maintained by Hugo E. A. da Gama Cerqueira (). This e-mail address is bad, please contact .