The Role of Organization in Agent Systems

Abstract

Agent Organization can be understood from two perspectives: organization as a process and organization as an entity. That is, organization is considered both as the process of organizing a set of individuals, or as an entity in itself, with its own requirements and objectives. In fact, agent organizations demand the integration of both perspectives and rely for a great extent on the notion of openness and heterogeneity of MAS. Practical applications of agents to organizational modeling are being widely developed, however, formal theories are needed to describe interaction and organizational structure. Furthermore, it is necessary to get a closer look at the applicability of insights and theories from organization sciences to the development of agent organizations. In this chapter, current approaches to agent organizations are discussed. Agent Organizations bring concepts and solutions from sociology and organizational theory into agent research, integrating organizational and individual perspectives, and aim at the dynamic adaptation of models to organizational and environmental changes, both of which are impacted by the notion of openness and heterogeneity. The chapter also presents a promising application of agent organizations to the area of human-agent teams.