Abstract:
Current collaborative work environments are characterized by dynamically changing organizational structures. Although there have been several efforts to refine work distribution, especially in workflow management, most literature assumes a static database approach which captures organizational roles, groups and hierarchies and implements a dynamic roles based agent assignment protocol. However, in practice only partial information may be available for organizational models, and in turn a large number of exceptions may emerge at the time of work assignment. In this paper we present an organizational model based on a policy based normative system. The model is based on a combination of an intensional logic of agency and a flexible, but computationally feasible, non-monotonic formalism (Defeasible Logic). Although this paper focuses on the model specification, the proposed approach to modelling agent societies provides a means of reasoning with partial and unpredictable information as is typical of organizational agents in workflow systems.
