Cooperative Knowledge Processing

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxv

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2. Cooperative Knowledge Processing - Research Framework and Application Perspectives

   • Stefan Kirn

   Pages 1-25

3. Coordination in Organizations

   • Rolf Müller

   Pages 26-42

4. Communication-Orientated Approaches to Support Multi-User Processes in Office Work

   • Michael Syring, Ulrich Hasenkamp

   Pages 43-63

5. Coordinating Human and Software Agents through Electronic Mail

   • Ian Finch, Frans Coenen, Trevor Bench-Capon, Michael Shave

   Pages 64-78

6. User Control over Coordination Mechanisms in Office Information Systems

   • Nikolay Mehandjiev, Leonardo Bottaci, Roger Phillips

   Pages 79-96

7. Computational Support for the Management of Social Processes within Organizational Teams

   • Gregory O’Hare, Linda Macauley, Paul Dongha, Steve Viller

   Pages 97-116

8. The Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing: How Locks Can Gently Control Collaboration

   • Rainer Unland

   Pages 117-138

9. Enhancing Organizational Intelligence through Cooperative Problem Solving

   • Stefan Kirn

   Pages 139-154

10. Organizational Intelligence and Negotiation Based DAI Systems — Theoretical Foundations and Experimental Results

    • Rainer Unland, Stefan Kirn

    Pages 155-172

11. Incorporating Organizational Design Principles and Experiences into the Design and Implementation of Multi Agent Systems

    • Shaheena Abbas, Gregory O’Hare

    Pages 173-195

12. Coordination Protocols

    • Kurt Sundermeyer

    Pages 196-211

13. Modeling Distributed Industrial Processes in a Multi-Agent Framework

    • Frances M. T. Brazier, Barbara Dunin-Keplicz, Nick R. Jennings, Jan Treur

    Pages 212-229

14. Utilitarian Coalition Formation Between Autonomous Agents for Cooperative Information Gathering

    • Matthias Klusch

    Pages 230-257

15. Back Matter

    Pages 258-296

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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.

• CSCW
• artificial intelligence
• calculus
• information system
• intelligence
• knowledge
• knowledge processing
• knowledge representation
• learning
• modeling
• multi-agent system
• networks
• organization
• organizations
• programming

• Technische Universität Ilmenau, Ilmenau, Germany

  Stefan Kirn

• Department of Computer Science, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland

  Gregory O’Hare

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