Evolving labor division in rugged performance landscapes

The strategic allocation of tasks and specialization of functional units increase efficiency and innovation across diverse socioeconomic domains, from biological systems to corporate structures. The evolution of task distribution and its influence on organizational productivity encapsulate the dynamic interplay between task dependencies and adaptive strategies. We explore the organizational division of labor via the Nk model of rugged landscapes, widely implemented in evolutionary biology studies, incorporating interdependencies among attributes of technical experts within an organization. Our model considers two types of employees, differing regarding their performance in the two tasks available: specialists, who perform a single task within the organization, and generalists, who randomly choose a task to perform at each time step. We investigate how the ruggedness of the productivity landscape, shaped by task interdependencies, affects an organization's ability to optimize labor division and meet socioeconomic market demands. Using group selection algorithms, we unveil the emergence of nonlinear adaptive dynamics, offering insights into how companies may adapt their strategies to meet market demands and foster innovation.