A preliminary test of Hunt's General Theory of Competition: using artificial adaptive agents to study complex and ill-defined environments

Business environments are complex and ill-defined. New developments in evolutionary computing allow the realistic modeling of complex and ill-defined business environments. Evolutionary computing tools are used to build a competitive market that mimics Hunt's General Theory of Competition (HGTC), in which competition is disequilibrium provoking and both innovation and organizational learning are endogenous. A discussion illustrates how this form of simulation can be valuable to the business strategist and also serve as an alternative method for competitive market strategy research.