Modeling coordination in organizations and markets
Management Science
Distributed Artificial Intelligence
Distributed Artificial Intelligence
Open information systems semantics for distributed artificial intelligence
Artificial Intelligence
The interdisciplinary study of coordination
ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR)
Foundations of distributed artificial intelligence
Foundations of distributed artificial intelligence
Object Magazine
Computational organization theory
Multiagent systems
On agent-based software engineering
Artificial Intelligence
Designing Complex Organizations
Designing Complex Organizations
The Gaia Methodology for Agent-Oriented Analysis and Design
Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems
Programming multi-agent systems
The Knowledge Engineering Review
The effect of task and environment factors on M.A.S. coordination and reorganization
Proceedings of the 6th international joint conference on Autonomous agents and multiagent systems
Dynamic configuration of agent organizations
IJCAI'09 Proceedings of the 21st international jont conference on Artifical intelligence
Organizational performance under conditions of vulnerability: A multi-agent perspective
Expert Systems with Applications: An International Journal
Cooperative planning in the supply network: a multiagent organization model
CEEMAS'05 Proceedings of the 4th international Central and Eastern European conference on Multi-Agent Systems and Applications
Agent and multi-agent applications to support distributed communities of practice: a short review
Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems
A distributed problem-solving framework for probabilistic software effort estimation
Expert Systems: The Journal of Knowledge Engineering
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In this work we present a framework for multi-agent system design which is based both on human organizational notions and principles for distributed intelligent systems design. The framework elaborates on the idea that notions from the field of organizational design can be used as the basis for the design of distributed intelligent systems. Concepts such as task, control, job, operation, management, coordination and organization are framed into an agent organizational framework. A collection of organizational design activities is presented that assist in a task oriented decomposition of the overall task of a system into jobs and the reintegration of jobs using job allocation, coordination mechanisms and organizational structuring. A number of coordination mechanisms have been defined in the organizational design literature. For the scope of this work we concentrate on: Direct Supervision where one individual takes all decisions about the work of others, Mutual Adjustment that achieves coordination by a process of informal communication between agents, and Standardization of Work, Output and Skills. Three organizational structures are discussed, that coordinate agents and their work: Machine Bureaucracy, Professional Bureaucracy and Adhocracy. The Machine Bureaucracy is task-driven, seeing the organization as a single-purpose structure, which only uses one strategy to execute the overall task. The Professional Bureaucracy is competence-driven, where a part of the organization will first examine a case, match it to predetermined situations and then allocate specialized agents to it. In the Adhocracy the organization is capable of reorganizing its own structure including dynamically changing the work flow, shifting responsibilities and adapting to changing environments. A case study on distributed supply chain management shows the process from task decomposition via organizational design to three multi-agent architectures based on Mintzberg's organizational structures.