July 7 Landscape models

Daniel Levinthal, Reginal H. Jones Professor of Corporate Strategy, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Axel Zeijen, Senior Researcher at the Department of Management, Technology, and Economics, ETH Zurich

Synchronous session info:
Date: July 7, 2025
Start Time: 14:00 UTC (10:00 EST / 16:00 CET)
End Time: 15:20 UTC
Link: https://georgetown.zoom.us/j/99313919043?pwd=huivLfbwQDaS6ooRlhbTTm28bqQn9M.1
Meeting ID: 993 1391 9043
Passcode: 957 810

Dear TOM Summer School participants,

In this module, we will tackle together the NK model, which has proven to be an important modeling platform in the management literature.

In preparation for the synchronous session, we ask you to do the following tasks.

1. Watch Dan Levinthal's "Introduction to NK Landscapes" video first. There you will learn about the NK model, its applications and extensions, and the impact that this model had on the management literature, which has been substantial.

2. In preparation for the exercises, watch Axel Zeijen's video. The video will guide you through the basics of coding and how the NK model works.

3. Do a series of exercises. The same video will also introduce a series of exercises. The exercises should take about four hours to complete. You will find the details regarding the exercises in the video and in the PDF document below.

4. Please add any questions you have on the landscape models materials to this google document by end of day Friday, July 4th so we can help direct the conversation to your interests and curiosity.

See you all soon!

Dan and Axel

Introduction

implementing NK model in matlab

Readings:

Baumann O, Schmidt J, Stieglitz N. 2019. Effective Search in Rugged Performance Landscapes: A Review and Outlook. Journal of Management 45(1): 285–318.

Csaszar FA. 2018. A note on how NK landscapes work. Journal of Organization Design. Springer 7(1): 1–6.

Levinthal DA. 1997. Adaptation on rugged landscapes. Management Science 43(7): 934–950.

Note from Axel & Matlab Code for Videos

Presentation notes from Axel

.zip file with code for this tutorial