Oleg V. Pavlov

Worcester Polytechnic Institute | WPI · Department of Social Science & Policy Studies

Existence theory in economics is usually in real domains such as the findings of chaotic trajectories in models of economic growth, tatonnement, or overlapping generations models. Computational examples, however, sometimes converge rapidly to cyclic orbits when in theory they should be nonperiodic almost surely. We explain this anomaly as the resul...

Innovation in wireless technologies enables business value creation through product and business process innovation. However, business model innovation is the most potent type of digital transformation. The platform business model has attracted significant attention in business research and practice, but mobile platform business models are not well...

Colleges and universities increasingly employ temporary instructors. Researchers in higher education have voiced strong concerns about this trend because of its impact on educational outcomes, operations of academic institutions, and the composition of academic workforce. To enhance our understanding of this employment practice, this article makes...

The platform business model has attracted significant attention in business research and practice. However, much of the existing literature studies commercial platforms that seek to maximize profit. In contrast, we focus on a platform for volunteers that aims to maximize social impact. This business model is called a platform for the common good. T...

This paper evaluates strategies to combat terrorism under the premise that violent radicalization operates as a social contagion. We tested antiterrorism, counterterrorism, and counter radicalization strategies in isolation and combination. All policies were tested in a simulation model built to the DIME-PMESII military standard across 10 years und...

This paper builds confidence in the terror contagion hypothesis that violent radicalization leading to predatory mass violence operates as a system. Within this system, the contingent values of key root causes create channels within which violent ideologies and terrorism emerge. We built a system dynamics simulation model capable of replicating his...

This study challenges the key premises of the current debate on radicalization's root causes, leading to predatory mass-violence. The current debate's three key premises are that there are only two radicalization templates: top-down (fishermen) or bottom-up (swarm). Additionally, these templates of radicalization are more useful to understand terro...

This paper broadens the search for causes of radicalization leading to predatory mass violence to areas beyond those highlighted in the the well-known fishermen-swarm debate. We begin by creating a system hierarchy of five levels within which we synthesize expert theories to present a complete system structure in a causal-loop diagram (CLD). From t...

Organized crime satisfies the demand for protection and enforcement of property rights in the absence of effective government institutions. However, weak law enforcement alone cannot explain the cross-regional differences in mafia activity. This chapter develops a feedback model of economic causes for the rise of the Sicilian mafia. Grounded in ear...

You are invited to submit your research to a Special Issue of the Systems journal. The theme of the SI is: "Computational Modeling Approaches to Finance and Fintech Innovation". NEW submission deadline: Sept 22, 2022 Guest Editors, Prof Katsamakas or Prof Pavlov. For more details see: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/systems/special_issues/cma

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on higher education. Steering academic institutions through the pandemic is a complex and multifaceted task that can be supported with model-based scenario analysis. This article studies the short-term and long-term effects of the pandemic on the financial health of a college using scenario analysi...

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on higher education. Steering academic institutions through the pandemic is a complex and multifaceted task that can be supported with model-based scenario analysis. This article studies the short-term and long-term effects of the pandemic on the financial health of a college using scenario analyse...

This book approaches economic problems from a systems thinking and feedback perspective. By introducing system dynamics methods (including qualitative and quantitative techniques) and computer simulation models, the respective contributions apply feedback analysis and dynamic simulation modeling to important local, national, and global economics is...

Steering academic institutions through the COVID-19 pandemic is a complex and multifaceted task that can be supported with model-based scenario analysis. This article studies the short-term and long-term economic effects of the pandemic on an academic institution using scenario analysis and stress testing with a system dynamics model of a represent...

Problem: This article studies the short-term and long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the financial health of a college. Method: We use scenario analyses and stress testing with a system dynamics model of a representative tuition-dependent college. Findings: Different combinations of the pandemic mitigation protocols may have varying effec...

This paper broadens the search for causes of radicalization leading to predatory mass violence beyond the well-known fishermen-swarm debate. We begin by creating a system hierarchy of five levels within which we synthesize expert theories of radicalization to present a complete system structure in a causal-loop diagram (CLD). From this we identify...

The approaching decline in the U.S. college-age population, sometimes referred to as a “demographic storm,” has been identified as an existential threat to the future of American colleges and universities. This article conducts a model-driven analysis of three plausible college-level responses to declining applications. It draws on systems theory t...

This article analyzes the effects of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on Business Model Innovation (BMI), focusing on the platform business model. It shows that AI enables key strategic feedback loops that constitute the core structure of the business model. Managers and entrepreneurs who seek to leverage AI should invest in the AI feedback loops. An A...

The approaching decline in the U.S. college-age population, sometimes referred to as a “demographic storm,” has been identified as an existential threat to the future of American colleges and universities. This article conducts a model-driven analysis of three plausible college-level responses to declining applications. It draws on systems theory t...

This chapter describes a pedagogical framework called Game-Based Structural Debriefing (GBSD). In GBSD, teachers integrate off-the-shelf games in the science curriculum to teach systems thinking skills such as recognizing complex causality and feedback loops. We co-designed a five-lesson curricular unit with three middle school life science teacher...

The authors developed a pedagogical framework called the game-based structural debriefing (GBSD) to leverage the affordances of video games for teaching systems thinking. By integrating system dynamics visualization tools within a set of debriefing activities, GBSD helps teachers make systems thinking an explicit goal of the gameplay and learning w...

This article investigates how universities may evolve into high- or low-performance institutions by taking different approaches to dissent tolerance and processing. We explore different dissent management policies related to growth and productivity. We experiment with a dynamic model of dissent creation and processing in organizations presented in...

Reforming STEM education in the United States continues to be a topic of active discussion and research. Why do some school districts succeed while others fail at implementing similar educational interventions? To answer this question, we apply the service science theory to characterize a pK-12 district that is viewed as a complex educational syste...

This chapter contributes to understanding higher education as a service by applying the service science framework to an undergraduate business program in northern Europe. We utilize the Service Science Canvas, which is a new tool for service science analysis. This innovative academic program relies exclusively on visiting faculty from around the wo...

Purpose-This article analyzes the long-term financial sustainability of small tuition-based colleges in the context of rapid and accelerating transformation caused by demographic changes in the undergraduate student market. Design/methodology/approach-The article takes a holistic approach by recognizing higher education institutions as complex se...

This article applies the service science framework to higher education. To understand the reasons behind the success and failure of academic programs, we build on the previous literature that suggests that education is a service delivered by universities, which are viewed as complex systems. We contribute to the service science theory by introducin...

Reforming STEM education in the United States continues to be a topic of active discussion and research. Why do some school districts succeed while others fail at implementing similar educational interventions? To answer this question, we apply the service science theory to characterize a pK-12 district that is viewed as a complex educational syste...

The article draws on service science and systems thinking to analyze the effects of declining campus enrollments on long-term financial sustainability of tuition-based colleges. The causal complexity of colleges due to the interrelationships between faculty, facilities, reputation, tuition, and teaching outcomes results in multiple unintended feedb...

We suggest that important trends in education can be understood if we view and study universities as complex systems that provide educational services. Methodologically, we draw on the service science theoretical framework, which we adapt to education, and then supplement our analysis with a computational model. We build a system dynamics model tha...

The modern university faces many challenges. We suggest that education can be understood as a complex system of services in a context of rapid and accelerating transformation caused by market forces. To study the dynamics of a typical US university, which is viewed as a service system, we develop and simulate a computational model that takes into a...

The article studies the effects of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on Business Model Innovation (BMI), focusing on the platform business model. Analysis shows that AI enables key strategic feedback loops that constitute the core structure of the business model. The implication is that managers and entrepreneurs who seek to leverage AI should invest in...

This chapter addresses the extension of entrepreneurship education across disciplines and divisions on a university campus. We draw on service science theory to examine how such academic programs may be designed, implemented and assessed. The experience at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in the United States serves as a case study, which we review...

This article applies the service science framework to education delivery at the university level. Educational programs are viewed as complex educational service systems that co-produce value for a variety of stakeholders. We introduce the Service Science Canvas, which is later adapted for the education industry and a specific case of an entrepreneu...

Systems thinking skills have been recognized as part of the core science literacy, and more recently, as critical 21st century skills. While several studies have investigated how games can be used to facilitate students' systems thinking skills, little is known about how teachers can design game-based curriculum. In this study, we investigate a ped...

This article discusses a project-based learning and research curriculum implemented collaboratively by American and Russian universities. WPI has been organizing and sending groups of its students for 7-week projects in Russia. Students work on projects in teams of 3-5 students under the supervision of academic advisors, who travel with them to Rus...

Systems thinking skills have been recognized as part of the core science literacy, and more recently, as critical 21st century skills. While several studies have investigated how games can be used to facilitate students’ systems thinking skills, little is known about how teachers can design game-based curriculum. In this study, we investigate a ped...

Systems thinking skills have been recognized as part of the core science literacy, and more recently, as critical 21st century skills. While several studies have investigated how games can be used to facilitate students’ systems thinking skills, little is known about how teachers can design game-based curriculum. In this study, we investigate a ped...

This article proposes a conceptual framework for dissent dynamics in organizations. We integrate the dissent expression and management framework of Kassing with the dynamic institution composition structure of Saeed and Pavlov to construct a generic model for understanding organizational dissent. Our model hypothesizes the impact of dissent accumul...

This paper reports on a real-life study in a US university. In response to financial issues, the administration at an undergraduate tuition-dependent university pushed for growth in student enrollment. The faculty, who argued that the quality of education had been declining, resisted the expansion. More students also affected the use of the univers...

Systems thinking skills required to understand complex systems have been emphasized in education as a core aspect of science literacy, and more recently, as a critical 21st century skill. Although several studies have investigated how games can be used to facilitate students’ systems thinking skills, little is known about how teachers can design ga...

Systems thinking skills required to understand complex systems have been emphasized in education as a core aspect of science literacy, and more recently, as a critical 21st century skill. Although several studies have investigated how games can be used to facilitate students’ systems thinking skills, little is known about how teachers can design ga...

Entrepreneurship and small business education programs have gained popularity globally. Nevertheless, many face difficulty in gaining campus-wide acceptance and sustainability. This paper applies a service science framework, presenting such programs as complex educational service systems that co-produce value for a variety of stakeholders. Access t...

Background. Research shows that learning and task performance improve when participants in management exercises understand the structure of the system they control. However, the majority of business simulators are black-boxes. Aim. This article introduces structural debriefing, which is a debriefing activity aimed at helping students learn about ca...

There is significant empirical evidence of dynamic feedback effects in financial crises. Evidence shows that financial system has a number of elements with procyclical response to various shocks. Under shocks, these elements can initiate a dynamic sequence from being shock absorbers into shock amplifiers. The purpose of this study is to conduct an...

This collection of presentations is from the mini-symposium entitled "Systems Science and Health: Using Analytical Approaches to Evaluate Healthcare Policy Decisions." The focus of this symposium is on systems science applications to health research. Systems science is a collection of analytical computer simulation techniques which are used to eval...

Educational programs leading to degrees in system dynamics are rare and thus of critical importance to the future of the field of system dynamics. However, to a large extent such programs have not yet been made transparent to the system dynamics community as a whole. The present article describes the design and rationale for undergraduate and gradu...

This paper utilizes the dynastic cycle framework proposed in (K. Saeed & Pavlov, 2008) to explain the role of dissent in universities. By combining the dissent expression framework (Kassing, 2011) and the dynastic cycle structure, we construct a generic model for dissent in organizations. The work is rooted in the literature of organizational commu...

Educational programs leading to degrees in system dynamics are rare and thus of critical importance to the future of the field of system dynamics. However, to a large extent such programs have not yet been made transparent to the system dynamics community as a whole. The present article describes the design and rationale for undergraduate and gradu...

In this paper we investigate the effects of network topologies on asset price dynamics. We introduce network communications into a simple asset pricing model with heterogeneous beliefs. The agents may switch between several belief types according to their performance. The performance information is available to the agents only locally through their...

We propose a generic model that explains why political systems tend toward certain outcomes. The model identifies possible economic and psychological paths toward change in a metaphorical political economy consisting of farmers, bandits and soldiers. In addition to economic factors, we also consider how two psychological factors, broadly categorize...

This paper reports on a study with a real-life client. In response to budgetary difficulties, administration at a tuition-dependent university pushed for growth in student enrollment. The expansion was resisted by the faculty who argued that the quality of education has declined. More students also impacted the use of university infrastructure. By...

Facing offshore competition, local medical schools have been lobbying the state Board of Regents, which supervises all educational activities in New York, for tighter limits on the use of state teaching hospitals for clerkships by offshore medical students. But New York needs students from the Caribbean medical universities. Graduates of Caribbean...

In this paper we investigate the effects of network topologies on asset price dynamics. We introduce network communications into a simple asset pricing model with heterogeneous beliefs. The agents may switch between several belief types according to their performance. The performance information is available to the agents only locally through their...

Generation Y (Gen Y) forms a sizeable workforce in today’s economy. Because this generation is tech savvy, it is likely that virtual worlds would serve as an ideal medium for recruiting such employees. Our research, however, showed that the participants in our study, who were part of the Generation Y population, had very little prior knowledge abou...

In this chapter, I used the strategy dynamics methodology, which is a combination of the resource-based theory and system dynamics, to explain the sustained ability of two online channels to deliver economic value to its users. I posed that since spam and file-sharing applications are acutely dependent on customer resources they both can be underst...

This paper re-evaluates the telecommunication policies often applied to create regional dispersion of services in developing countries. We observe that failure to consider the complexities of the regional telecommunication systems in creating policies and investment strategies has increased the telecom gap between urban and rural regions worldwide....

This book explains how changing technology and economizing behaviour induce vast changes in productivity, resource allocation, labour utilization, and patterns of living. Economic growth is seen as a process by which businesses, regimes, countries, and the whole world pass through distinct epochs, each one emerging from its predecessor, each one cr...

This book explains how changing technology and economizing behaviour induce vast changes in productivity, resource allocation, labour utilization, and patterns of living. Economic growth is seen as a process by which businesses, regimes, countries, and the whole world pass through distinct epochs, each one emerging from its predecessor, each one cr...

As filters improve, the information assets of spammers become more valuable and lead to more, not less, overall spamming activity. This is troubling to contemplate, because it means no amount of spending on better filters will be enough. The next levels of escalation might then involve sender-receiver prearrangement, a new accounting infrastructure...

Graduate degree programs in system dynamics are rare and thus of critical importance to the future of the field of system dynamics. However, to a large extent such programs have not yet been made transparent to the system dynamics community as a whole. The present paper describes the design and rationale for one such program, WPI"s M. S. degree pro...

Organized crime satisfies a demand for necessary social services in the absence of effective government institutions. This paper examines the rise of the Sicilian mafia. Using system dynamics, we model this system and test various policies to determine what factors have the greatest impact on mafia power. Based on the experiments, the most effectiv...

The phenomenon of unwanted commercial messages (UCM), including e-mail spam and emerging forms that target other Internet communications facilities, is analyzed from an information-economics perspective. UCM traffic pays off for its senders when it is noticed and consumed by Internet users; the industry is, therefore, dependent on a common-pool res...

A generic system embodies basic principles and insights that are common to a set of diverse cases and situations. For example, a generic system called "limits to growth" captures the constraints experienced by an organization due to the scarcity of an important resource. Its manifestations range from the tragedy of Easter Island to the spotty perfo...

We develop a system dynamics model of message-based communication, where the information-processing capacity of message recipients is limited. Profit-seeking broadcasters send messages, but only some of these messages are valuable to recipients. Recipients cannot determine whether or not a message is valuable until it is processed. Information over...

Email marketing is a legitimate, lucrative, and widely used business tool, but it is in danger of being overrun by unwanted commercial email (also known as spam). Conventional approaches to maintaining the robustness of legitimate email attack pieces of the problem. In contrast, this article asserts that the email marketing infrastructure is a comp...

We propose a simple model of a financial market populated with heterogeneous agents. The market represents a network with nodes symbolizing the agents and edges standing for connections between them, thus, embodying local interactions in the market. By local interactions we mean any kind of interplay between the decisions of the agents unaffected b...

We propose a simple model of a financial market populated with heterogeneous agents. The market represents a network with nodes symbolizing the agents and edges standing for connections between them, thus, embodying local interactions in the market. By local interactions we mean any kind of interplay between the decisions of the agents unaffected b...

The purpose of this paper is to report on the administered pricing subsector of a Post Keynesian-institutionalist-system dynamics (PKI-SD) "core" model that is currently under development by the authors. When complete, the model will be used to examine the dynamics of heterodox economic theory as well as to test the implications of heterodox policy...

Unsolicited commercial e-mail (UCE) is a significant problem of the digital commons, but there has been little empirical analysis of proposed solutions and underly- ing mechanisms. This study, based on an analysis of 47 million inbound e-mail messages drawn from a cross-section of e-mail inbox owners over a one-year period, characterizes resource o...

The growth of unsolicited commercial email imposes increasing costs on organizations and causes considerable aggravation on the part of email recipients. A thriving anti-spam industry addresses some of the frustration. Regulation and various economic and technical means are in the works – all aimed at bringing down the flood of unwanted commercia...

Peer-to-peer technology allowed massive free music file sharing, which led to much controversy, legal debate, and a great deal of speculation about technology's business viability. Operation of a peer-to-peer (P2P) network depends on the content and bandwidth contributions from its users. Many users free ride by contributing fewer resources than th...

Peer-to-peer technology has made massive unsanctioned music exchange possible, which may have a profound effect on the recording industry. Record labels have responded to the emergence of online music networks with litigation and are also considering self-help measures. It is currently not obvious whether or not these strategies will ultimately sti...

The growth of unsolicited commercial e-mail (UCE) imposes increasing costs on organizations and causes considerable aggravation on the part of e-mail recipients. A thriving anti-spam industry addresses some of the frustration. Regulation and various economic and technical means are in the works. All anti-spam measures aim at bringing down the flood...