Global competition and rapidly changing technology make it critical that we understand how organizations can adapt to a changing environment so that they can maintain or improve their performance. Organizations respond to the environment through redesign (downsizing, upsizing, or re-engineering various tasks). Further, organizations frequently cope with changes such as journeymen personnel who pursue their careers by moving among organizations. Organizational adaptation presumably contributes greatly to organizational productivity, even as individual learning contributes to personal productivity. However, little is known about organizational adaptation, and particularly about whether such adaptation even has the theoretical possibility of improving performance given that individuals are themselves learning. A computational framework for theorizing about organizational adaptation and performance will be developed and used to explore the conditions under which adaptation leads to performance improvements. This framework employs simulated annealing algorithms for locating optimal organizational structures in fixed and volatile environments. The effect of organizational adaptation, particularly when personnel are journeymen will be examined. Questions to be addressed include: What adaptation strategies are most effective? What types of organizations emerge as high performers, particular when personnel are journeymen? Does the technology transfer that occurs when personnel journey among organizations lead to organizational performance improvements?
