Cooperative Knowledge Processing : The Key Technology for Intelligent Organizations

In the light of the challenges that face today's organizations, there is a grow­ ing recognition that future market success and long term' survival of enter­ prises will increasingly depend upon the effective usage of information technology. Of late, a new generation of terminology has emerged to describe enterprises. This terminology draws heavily upon the virtual concep- virtual reality, virtual organization, virtual (working) environment, and indeed virtual product. However, developing computerized organisations for the 21st century demands serious thought with regard to the judicious integration of organizational theory, design and practice with research tools and methods from within information processing technology. Within this book, we approach this aim from the perspective of a radically decentralized (possibly virtual) enterprise. We assume that organizations are becoming increasingly process-orientated, rather than adhering to the former more traditional organizational structures based upon task oriented models. This approach has proved illuminating in that, due to the inherent autonomy of organizational subunits any approach to coordinating decentralized activ­ ities (including workflows and business processes) necessitates a cooperative style of problem solving. This book introduces the reader to a stimulating new field of interdiscipli­ nary research in cooperative problem solving. In Chapter 1 Kim presents a view of three central discip14tes, namely those of Organizational Theory, Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) and Distributed Artificial Intelligence (DAI). The applications given here demonstrate how future enterprises will benefit from recent advances in the technological arena of cooperative knowledge processing.

1 Cooperative Knowledge Processing ― Research Framework and Applications.- 1.1 Introduction.- 1.2 Organizational Paradigms: Evolving Role of Information Technology.- 1.2.1 Early Wor.- 1.2.2 Decision-Orientated Organization Theory.- 1.2.3 Management of the 1990s Research Program.- 1.2.4 Integration of Human and Machine-Based Problem Solving.- 1.3 New Organizational Strategies: A Brief Review.- 1.3.1 Business Process Orientatio.- 1.3.2 Fractalizatio.- 1.3.3 Fractalization versus Business Process Orientation: Conflicting Strategies?.- 1.4 Technology of Cooperative Knowledge Processing.- 1.4.1 Framework.- 1.4.2 Multi-Agent Decision Support Systems (MA-DSS).- 1.4.3 Human Computer Cooperative Work (HCCW).- 1.5 Application Perspectives.- 1.5.1 Attention Focusing Capabilities.- 1.5.2 Knowledge Discovery.- 1.5.3 Business Process Orientation.- 1.5.4 Self-Organization Skills.- 1.6 Summary.- 2 Coordination in Organizations.- 2.1 Introduction.- 2.2 Organizational Coordination.- 2.2.1 Coordination Concepts.- 2.2.2 Types of Coordination.- 2.3 Computers and Coordination.- 2.3.1 Possible Roles of the Computer.- 2.3.2 Distributed Intelligence.- 2.4 Design Issues and Applications.- 2.5 Example of a Strategy Related Coordination System.- 2.5.1 Perception of Common Objects.- 2.5.2 Communication.- 2.5.3 Conflict Management (Group Decision Making).- 3 Communication-Oriented Approaches to Support Multi-User Processes in Office Work.- 3.1 Introduction.- 3.2 Office Work.- 3.3 Requirements to Support Multi-User Processes in Office Work.- 3.3.1 Basic Requirements.- 3.3.2 Formal Requirements.- 3.4 Communication Orientated Approaches for Supporting Office Work.- 3.4.1 Decision Orientation vs. Communication Orientation.- 3.4.2 Approaches and Systems for the Support of Unstructured Communication.- 3.4.3 Approaches and Systems for the Support of Structured Communication.- 3.4.4 Other Approaches and Systems for the Support of Office Group Work.- 3.5 Evaluation of the Approaches Presented.- 3.6 Summary.- 4 Coordinating Human and Software Agents through Electronic Mail.- 4.1 Introduction.- 4.2 Software Support Tools.- 4.2.1 Simple Message Filtering.- 4.2.2 Active Filtering.- 4.2.3 Autonomous Agents.- 4.2.4 Combining Simple Filters, Active Filters and Autonomous Agents.- 4.3 Modes of Interaction with Adcmail.- 4.3.1 Interactive Use of Adcmail.- 4.3.2 Filtering in Adcmail.- 4.3.3 Adcmail Sub-systems.- 4.3.4 The Task Scripting Language.- 4.4 The Coordination Mechanism.- 4.4.1 Human Agents.- 4.4.2 Computer Supported Humans.- 4.4.3 Autonomous Sub-systems.- 4.5 Conclusions.- 5 User Control over Coordination Mechanisms in Office Information Systems.- 5.1 Introduction.- 5.2 Office Model in ECHOES.- 5.3 Collaborative Work Scenarios.- 5.3.1 Scenario 1:Evolutionary Changes in the Processing of Application Forms.- 5.3.2 Scenario 2: Answering a Nonroutine Enquiry.- 5.4 Modeling Coordination Mechanisms in ECHOES.- 5.4.1 Information Flow Aspect.- 5.4.2 Information Description Aspect.- 5.4.3 Organizational Aspect.- 5.4.4 Service Description Aspect.- 5.4.5 Degrees of Control over Coordination Mechanisms.- 5.5 Related Research.- 5.6 The ECHOES Project.- 5.6.1 Current State of the Prototype.- 5.6.2 Further Work Required.- 5.7 Summary and Conclusion.- 6 Computational Support for the Management of Social Processes within Organizational Teams.- 6.1 Introduction.- 6.2 The Cooperative Requirements Capture (CRC) Project.- 6.3 The CRC Prototype.- 6.4 Description of the CRC User Interface.- 6.4.1 The Personal Communication Window.- 6.4.2 The Group Communication Window.- 6.4.3 The CRC Agenda Window.- 6.4.4 The Public Window.- 6.4.5 Description Windows.- 6.4.6 The Brainstorming Window.- 6.4.7 The CRC Group Members Window.- 6.5 Why Facilitation?.- 6.6 The Role of the Facilitator.- 6.7 CRC Support for the Social Process.- 6.8 Facilitator Support within CRC Prototype.- 6.8.1 Communication.- 6.8.2 Agenda Management.- 6.8.3 Monitoring Group Activity.- 6.8.4 Monitoring Individual Activity.- 6.8.5 Display Group Dynamics.- 6.8.6 Recognising Problematic Social Syndromes.- 6.8.7 Retrospective Analysis.- 6.9 Future Work.- 6.10 Conclusions.- 7 The Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing: How Locks Can Gently Control Collaboration.- 7.1 Introduction.- 7.2 Concurrency Control and Cooperative Work.- 7.2.1 Extended Set of Lock Modes.- 7.2.2 The Two Effects of a Lock.- 7.2.3 The Semantics of the Lock Modes.- 7.2.4 A Short Discussion of Consistency Aspects.- 7.2.5 Dynamic Assignment of an External Effect (Open Lock).- 7.2.6 Upgrading a Lock.- 7.3 Locks in the Context of Nested Transactions.- 7.4 Rules on Locks and Notification Services.- 7.5 Object-Related Locks.- 7.6 Subject-Related Locks.- 7.7 Conclusion.- 8 Enhancing Organizational Intelligence through Cooperative Problem Solving.- 8.1 Introduction.- 8.2 Organisational Intelligence (OI).- 8.2.1 Organisational Process Intelligence.- 8.2.2 Organisational Product Intelligence.- 8.3 Incorporating Organizational Intelligence into Distributed AI Systems.- 8.3.1 Organisational Memory.- 8.3.2 Organisational Cognition.- 8.3.3 Self Organisation, and Organisational Learning Skills.- 8.3.4 Interactions between Multiagent Systems and their Environment.- 8.3.5 Organisational Reasoning.- 8.4 The Contribution of Distributed AI to the Intelligence of Computerized Enterprises.- 9 Organizational Intelligence and Negotiation Based DAI Systems ― Theoretical Foundations and Experimental Results.- 9.1 Introduction.- 9.2 Theoretical Foundations.- 9.2.1 Matsuda’s OI Approach ― a Brief Introduction.- 9.2.2 The Capability to Learn from the Point of View of Organization Theory.- 9.3 Extension of Contract Net-Based Systems by OI Components.- 9.4 Realization in a Scenario.- 9.4.1 Description of the Scenario.- 9.4.2 The Basic Structure of the System.- 9.4.3 Schematic Run of a Move in the OI-Scenario.- 9.5 Presentation and Evaluation of the Results.- 9.5.1 Comparison Conventional ? Extended Contract Net.- 9.5.2. Size of Organizational Memory.- 9.5.3 Time Needed for Negotiated Moves.- 9.6 Conclusion.- 10 Incorporating Organizational Design Principles and Experiences into the Design and Implementation of Multi Agent Systems.- 10.1 Introduction.- 10.2 Distributed Artificial Intelligence (DAI).- 10.3 Organizational Theory (OT).- 10.4 A DAI Perspective on Organisations.- 10.5 Synthesizing DAI & OT.- 10.5.1 Social Ability.- 10.5.2 Organizational Coherence.- 10.5.3 Task Decomposition.- 10.5.4 Coordination.- 10.5.5 Authority Relationships.- 10.5.6 Decision Autonomy.- 10.5.7 Communication.- 10.5.8 Groups, Norms and Conformity.- 10.5.9 Role.- 10.5.10 Environment.- 10.6 Design Principles.- 10.7 Agent Oriented Programming (AOP).- 10.8 Warehouse World.- 10.9 Design and Experimental Testing of Emergent Organizations.- 10.10 Conclusions.- 11 Coordination Protocols.- 11.1 Introduction.- 11.2 From Speech Acts to Dialogs.- 11.2.1 Speech Acts and Message Types.- 11.2.2 Speech as Planned Action.- 11.2.3 Dialogs.- 11.3 Protocols.- 11.3.1 Task & Domain Specific Protocols.- 11.3.2 Generic Protocols.- 11.4 Conclusion.- 12 Modeling Distributed Industrial Processes in a Multi-Agent Framework.- 12.1 Introduction.- 12.2 The Application Domain.- 12.3 A Specification Framework for Multi-Agent Systems.- 12.3.1 Task (De)composition.- 12.3.2 Information Exchange Between Tasks.- 12.3.3 Sequencing of Tasks.- 12.3.4 Delegation of Tasks.- 12.3.5 Knowledge Structures.- 12.4 Formal Model and Specification of a Multi-Agent System.- 12.4.1 Task Decomposition and Role Allocation..- 12.4.2 Information Flow Within an Agent.- 12.4.3 Task Control Within an Agent.- 12.4.4 Control and Communication Between Agents.- 12.5 Discussion.- 13 Utilitarian Coalition Formation Between Autonomous Agents for Cooperative Information Gathering.- 13.1 Introduction.- 13.2 A Brief Introduction to some Related Research Areas.- 13.2.1 Federated Database Systems.- 13.2.2 Terminological Knowledge Representation.- 13.3 The FCSI-Agent: Functionality and Architecture.- 13.3.1 Local Construction of Information Models.- 13.3.2 Local Recognition of Interdatabase Dependencies.- 13.4 Coalitions of FCSI Agents.- 13.4.1 FCSI Coalition Types.- 13.4.2 Decentralized Coalition Formation Between FCSI Agents.- 13.5 IDEAS ― an Environment for the Implementation of FCSI Agents.- 13.5.1 A Brief Overview of IDEAS.- 13.5.2 Working with IDEAS...- 13.5.3 Agent Execution.- 13.6 Conclusion and Discussion.- 13.7 Appendix.- Epilogue: Computers, Networks and the Corporation.- References.- Name Index.