Agencybased

Agencybased is a term used in various disciplines to describe approaches, systems, or analyses that emphasize the role and autonomy of agents. The term draws on the concept of agency and is often encountered in contrast to structure-based perspectives. It is frequently hyphenated as agency-based, whereas agencybased appears in some texts or databases.

In the social sciences, agencybased analyses focus on individual and organizational decision-making within constraints, highlighting the capacity of actors to influence outcomes. In computing and modeling, agent-based or agencybased modeling uses autonomous software agents that interact according to defined rules, producing emergent patterns.

In management and marketing, a project or research approach may be described as agencybased when it centers on the actions of practitioners, clients, or agents (real or digital) rather than solely on organizational processes. Because it is not a widely standardized term, usage varies by field, and hyphenation and spacing differ across sources.

See also: agent-based modeling, agency, autonomy.