87,012 research outputs found
Cultural Integration and Differentiation in Groups and Organizations
Full text linkExperimental and field research has demonstrated a pervasive tendency toward pairwise conformity among individuals connected by positive social ties, and work using formal models has shown that opinions on connected in uence networks should thus converge toward uniformity. Observing that diversity persists even in small scale groups and organizations, we investigate two empirically grounded mechanisms of social differentiation that may account for this persistence: First, actors may dislike or disrespect peers who diverge too much from their own views, and may change their opinions or behaviors to distance themselves further from those negative referents. Second, when surrounded by similar others, actors may try to maintain a sufficient sense of uniqueness by exploring new opinions or behaviors. Using computational experiments, we demonstrate that these two mechanisms lead to different patterns of polarization, radicalization, and factionalism and also investigate the conditions under which integration occurs. In closing, we discuss the implications for cultural dynamics in organizations
Dialogue in team formation
No full textThe process of cooperative problem solving can be divided into four stages. First, finding potential team members, then forming a team followed by constructing a plan for that team. Finally, the plan is executed by the team. Traditionally, very simple protocols like the Contract Net protocol are used for performing the first two stages of the process. And often the team is already taken for granted. In an open environment (like in e.g. electronic commerce) however, there can be discussion among the agents in order to form a team that can achieve the collective goal of solving the problem. For these cases fixed protocols like contract net do not suffice. In this paper we present an alternative solution, using structured dialogues that can be shown to lead to the required team formation. The dialogues are described formally (using some modal logics), thus making it possible to actually prove that a certain dialogue has a specific outcome.</p
Dialogue in team formation
No full textThe process of cooperative problem solving can be divided into four stages. First, finding potential team members, then forming a team followed by constructing a plan for that team. Finally, the plan is executed by the team. Traditionally, very simple protocols like the Contract Net protocol are used for performing the first two stages of the process. And often the team is already taken for granted. In an open environment (like in e.g. electronic commerce) however, there can be discussion among the agents in order to form a team that can achieve the collective goal of solving the problem. For these cases fixed protocols like contract net do not suffice. In this paper we present an alternative solution, using structured dialogues that can be shown to lead to the required team formation. The dialogues are described formally (using some modal logics), thus making it possible to actually prove that a certain dialogue has a specific outcome.</p
Dialogue in Team Formation
No full textThe process of cooperative problem solving can be divided into four stages. First, finding potential team members, then forming a team followed by constructing a plan for that team. Finally, the plan is executed by the team. Traditionally, very simple protocols like the Contract Net protocol are used for performing the first two stages of the process. And often the team is already taken for granted. In an open environment (like in e.g. electronic commerce) however, there can be discussion among the agents in order to form a team that can achieve the collective goal of solving the problem. For these cases fixed protocols like contract net do not suffice. In this paper we present an alternative solution, using structured dialogues that can be shown to lead to the required team formation. The dialogues are described formally (using some modal logics), thus making it possible to actually prove that a certain dialogue has a specific outcome.</p
Structural aspects of agent organizations
No full textIn this chapter we investigate how organizations can be represented as graphs endowed with formal semantics. We distinguish different dimensions of organizations. Each of these dimensions leads to a different structure in the organizational graph. By giving the graphs a formal semantics in Description Logic we show that it is possible to formalize the effect of the organization on the activities of the agents playing the roles of the organization. Such perspective, which combines quantitative (graph-theory) and qualitative (logic) methods is shown to provide a formal ground for the study and analysis of properties of organizations which are commonly addressed only informally
A language/action perspective on cooperative information agents
No full textResearch in Information Systems has switched its focus from data to
communication. The communication between different autonomous ICS’s (Information
and Communication System) requires a certain amount of intelligence of each system.
The system should be able to know which queries it can/may handle and also be able to
negotiate about the information that it will give. In short these systems evolve into what
is called Cooperative Information Agents. We show that basing the information
contents of these agents on linguistic concepts and furthermore modelling the
communications between the agents using speech act theory provides for a natural and
sound setting for these CIA’s as well as for Business Modelling. In addition, we
describe a lexicon in which the conceptual meaning of the terms of communication can
be defined. Together, these models provide an integrated semantics for Cooperative
Information Agents. These can be interorganizational, as in EDI applications, or
intraorganizational, as in Workflow Management
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