No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
Agent Based Simulation of Trust Dynamics in Dependence Networks
Abstract
Online communities can be seen as service systems, in which actors interact providing, requesting or sharing resources for [co-]creating value. On the basis of the resources needed/owned for achieving a goal it is possible to draw several dependence links among the actors (agents), creating a dependence network. On the other hand, since trust is the key coordinating mechanism in community based organizations, by analyzing the dynamics of trust in dependence networks is possible to better understand the behavior of this kind of service system, viewed as a complex social systems. In this paper we develop an architecture of cognitive agents and of the environment in which they act and interact. This architecture will be the basis for implementing a platform for agent based simulation that serves as a tool for investigating the dynamics of information sharing, collaboration, and collective action within different service systems.
... Smart services are closely related to big data and analytics , that provide accurate measures of a dynamic world and insights on dynamic customers, allowing the rise of more instrumented, interconnected and intelligent businesses and societal systems. The role of data science in designing advanced and personalized services determined the development of research studies which aimed to outline the potential contribution of advanced analytics to service value creation [3,4,5,6,7]. ...
The aim of this article is to discuss an advanced approach to recommendation systems, based on the adoption of Deep Feed-Forward Neural Networks. Recommendation engines are data-driven infrastructures designed to help customers in their decision-making process, and nowadays represent the “state of the art” in designing smart and personalized services, in accordance with the new customer-centric perspective. For this purpose, we followed a quantitative methodological approach, comparing the predictive ability of traditional “Collaborative” recommendation algorithms, like the k-Nearest Neighbors (k-NN) and the Singular Value Decomposition (SVD), with Feed-Forward Neural Networks; given these assumptions, we finally demonstrated that a “Deep” Neural architecture could achieve better results in terms of “loss” generated by the model, laying the foundations for a new, innovative paradigm in service recommendation science.
... Controls over massive app stores (e.g., Google Play) and, in particular, automatic controls over Android applications, both by code analysis and inference from neural networks [41][42][43], are a direction to look to, as up-to-date research indicates that existing control mechanisms are not sufficient to protect from malicious software [44]. Trust and consumer behaviors when downloading Android apps from massive Application Markets are also aspects to be considered for future research [45]. ...
Mobile technologies are increasingly pervading a substantial portion of everyday life. In particular, the economic sector of consumers and private sales has shown a very high rate of utilization of mobile applications. Mobile payments are no exception, and the economic development relies more and more on mobile technologies. Bank institutions and financial firms are privileged targets for cyber attacks and organized crime, exploiting vulnerabilities of smart mobile devices in particular for host card emulation wireless payments. The research analysis was based on mobile platform Android and identified ten original (novel) controls that can avoid possible attacks on payment transactions and/or privacy. The study has practical implications as practitioners and organizations, like banks, shall control the risks associated with the taxonomy of tamper IDs. Organizational implications can be regarded as the need for banks to look into software development for mobile applications.
... This could be the first step in achieving a new mode of interaction at enterprise level, both with customers and with the socio-economic tissue of the society (as with Stephen and Toubia 2010). The business approach to social interaction is also fairly dependent on company culture (Cavallari 2005), thus revealing a strong necessity to interconnect mobile technology strategy, business model and information accessibility (Za et al. 2015). ...
Most major banks, credit card payment processors/issuers and large businesses have come to adopt mobile pay- ment applications for smartphones. A ica, Asia, South America and other developing countries are no exceptions. e rate of growth of developing countries’ smartphone market penetration and usage have increased tremendously in recent years. Based on previous research ndings (Cavallari et al., 2015; 2016), the present study regards mobile payments as one of the new architectures at the heart of “social commerce”. e paper discusses research into the tech- nological aspects that pertain to security issues of smartphones. e novelty of present work resides in the authors’ tailor-made approach. e empirical results highlight the extent of the information that can be passively accessed within the endpoint (smartphone) and the most vulnerable areas to consider. is study is especially pertaining to developing countries where smartphones models and versions of Operating Systems are particularly old or outdated. We conclude that the most critical risk carriers are linked to an abundance of devices with obsolete operating systems and that are no longer supported by the supplier. is has shown to be particularly true about A ica, Latin America and other developing countries, (Duncombe 2014; Han 2012; Asongu 2013). e research concludes that whilst the payment clearing companies are incapable of protecting endpoints, their development and deployment of payment solutions based on HCE architectures will increase the risk of criminal transactions. So the foreseen scenario will see aud schemes that will migrate to the virtual payment environments found in the endpoint, instead of exploiting the weaknesses in the physical POS and/or credit card payment system. Practical research ndings illustrate the most vulnerable areas of mOS in order to prevent attacks and tampering.
... ICTs can be seen as major enabler for modern enterprise collaborations [4], without appropriate ICT based approaches and infrastructures, cooperative relationships between enterprises would not be possible. By improving the transparency of interorganisational infrastructures and implementing the advanced organisational approaches, cooperative and flexible solutions can become feasible. ...
Enterprises’ networks (formal and informal) are an ever-growing economic phenomenon, especially in Europe, characterised by a large number of Small and Medium Enterprises. The new economic opportunities are making possible the creation of new types of organizations where the deployment of information technology into knowledge work will increase organizational productivity and effectiveness. The aim of the paper is to summarise the results of the NEMESYS research project funded under the Lazio Region Structural Funds, where a digital platform has been developed in order to deliver services to enterprise networks independently from the network shape and enabling efficiency and effectiveness of the business activities.
... In fact, ICT usage has dramatically increased the spread of information and reduced transaction costs, especially searching and bargaining costs. This had been possible especially thanks to Internet platforms that keep a myriad of individuals and businesses all over the world in contact, via a peer-to-peer relationship where actors interact providing, requesting or sharing resources for [co-]creating value [5]. In this scenario, the active contribution of Information Management in developing value-added services may transform IT from a perceived cost center to a perceived profit [6]. ...
The “sharing revolution” would not be possible without digital technologies and the diffusion of ICT worldwide. ICT has created a new level playing field also thanks to peer-to-peer (P2P) platforms, and a new concept, the “sharing and collaborative consumption online”, is expanding. This concept is based on what can be called CASH - “collaboration”, “access”, “sharing” rather than “ownership” meant also as a chance to collect money in addition to monthly salary. This paper aims to describe a successful P2P platform that well reflect the CASH concept, Airbnb, currently the leader of the online accommodation marketplace, using the case study approach and the SWOT analysis methodology. This analysis is useful in order to understand the main features and functioning of such a platform and what to expect for the years to come. Results show that Airbnb is growing at high speed in terms of users and profits but some challenges have to be faced in the next future linked to regulatory issues and to traditional accommodation market and citizens reactions.
This research addresses the dearth of real-world data required for effective neural network model building, delving into the crucial field of industrial control and automation system (ICS) cybersecurity. Cyberattacks against ICS are first identified and then generated in an effort to raise awareness of vulnerabilities and improve security. This research aims to fill a need in the existing literature by examining the effectiveness of a novel approach to ICS cybersecurity that draws on data from real industrial settings. Real-world data from a variety of commercial sectors is used in this study to produce a complete dataset. These sectors include power systems, freshwater tanks, and gas pipelines, which together provide a wide range of commercial scenarios where anomaly detection and attack classification approaches are critical. The generated data are shown to considerably improve the models' precision. An amazing 71% accuracy rate is achieved in power system models, and incorporating generated data reliably increases network speed. Using generated data, the machine learning system achieves an impressive 99% accuracy in a number of trials. In addition, the system shows about 90% accuracy in most studies when applied to the setting of gas pipelines. In conclusion, this article stresses the need to improve cybersecurity in vital industrial sectors by addressing the dearth of real-world ICS data. To better understand and defend against cyberattacks on industrial machinery and automation systems, it demonstrates how generative data can improve the precision and dependability of neural network models.
In the last decade, the cruise sector operates in a dynamic and highly competitive environment requiring more flexible and resilient organizations. With the Fourth Industrial Revolution, many companies in the cruise sector recognize the importance of innovative digital technologies for their business. Digital Supply Chain describes an organizational change process leading to the application and implementation of digital technology in order to achieve effective and efficient flows of products, services and information, to provide maximum value to the customer. This study explores the potential of cloud-based B2B integration brokerage solution in order to improve efficiency and collaboration in extended enterprise processes, by enabling a multiformat and multi-protocol data exchange management. The paper uses primary data obtained through in-depth semi-structured interview with an executive staff from a cruise company operating in the Mediterranean region. Research findings unveil the strategy of a cruise company’s supply chain and the operational performance with the use of digital technologies.KeywordsCruise sectorDigital supply chainIntegration
As digital human resource management is taking great significance in scholarly discussions, studies around this field are on the growth. Digital technology develops many industries in several concerns, consequently making it eligible for investigation and debate. Bibliometric analysis of digital HRM publications conducted using the Scopus database. The research is limited to the significant works related to digital HRM in the section of (Social Sciences, Business, Management, Accounting, Economics, Econometrics, Finance, and Arts & Humanities). After preprocessing the data, the analysis explored the thematic development of the topic considering coauthorship between the countries and co-occurrences of keywords using the VOSviewer software for visualizing the data. After that, a specific analysis has conducted to identify the status of digital HRM in the hotel business context. The results present an overview of previous studies that revealed challenges and main trends in the hotel digital HRM. Finally, this research contributes to digital HRM literature and makes recommendations for future studies.KeywordsDigitalizationHuman resource managementHotel businessBibliometric analysis
Among the education, health and justice services, which are among the basic public services in the world, education has been the best service that adapts to the current era in the digital sense. However, with the Covid-19 pandemic, it has been seen that basic health services should also be digitized. In this study, what kind of health care services can be offered as online Hybrid Delphi technique was investigated by health professionals for both conservation and effective resource management in Turkey. The Hybrid Delphi technique is a combined version of the strengths of group decision making techniques. In the research, an expert group consisting of doctors with at least 5 years of working experience in the public sector was formed. matters which are not in agreement and consensus on what kind of online health services may be offered in Turkey were determined. In addition, the benefits of online healthcare and concerns over ethics have also been raised. Our findings have shown that some special treatment and examination processes can be done online. However, there is no necessary legal and physical infrastructure in Turkey. In Turkey, there is a need for legislation to be presented to online health services online.
Smart City is a recent topic, but it is spreading very fast, as it is perceived as a winning strategy to cope with some severe urban problems such as traffic, pollution, energy consumption, waste treatment. Smart city ideas are the merge of some other more ancient urban policies such as digital city, green city, knowledge city. A smart city is therefore a complex, long-term vision of a better urban area, aiming at reducing its environmental footprint and at creating better quality of life for citizens. Mobility is one of the most difficult topic to face in metropolitan large areas. It involves both environmental and economic aspects, and needs both high technologies and virtuous people behaviours. Smart mobility is largely permeated by ICT, used in both backward and forward applications, to support the optimization of traffic fluxes, but also to collect citizens’ opinions about likeability in cities or quality of local public transport services. The aim of this paper is to analyse the Smart Mobility initiatives as part of a larger smart city initiative portfolio, and to investigate about the role of ICT in supporting smart mobility actions, influencing their impact on the citizens’ quality of life and on the public value created for the city as a whole.
Near Field Communication (NFC) and contactless applications are increasing at unprecedented rate and their value is being recognised by the financial industry (Ok et al., 2011). Attacks are also increasing and they can compromise the business value on NFC applications (Murdoch and Anderson, 2010, Trend Micro, 2015). The present paper analyse the anatomy of possible attacks, uncovering vulnerabilities and suggesting possible countermeasures. The value of the paper is found in the contribution to practical mitigation of risk in the mobile payment financial business, with respect to the technology side. Host Card Emulation (HCE) is a technology solution that permits the creation of a virtual representation of a smart card using only software components, effectively eliminating the need for Secure Element hardware in the device. NFC/HCE technologies has proved itself very vulnerable in a variety of aspects. The paper would go through specific vulnerabilities and vulnerable situation, like: a non-secure-device/cloud communication channel; access to data saved locally in wallet; reusability of token; use of fake POS; malware and fake application; specific vulnerabilities of "Tap & Pay"; device/cloud decoupling. Countermeasures that have been proved effective are offered to readers along with Organisational aspects to be taken into account.
One of the most addressed kinds of relationships able to generate value in a network is trust (studied in different ways, for different purposes, by different disciplines). While it is very important to keep on investigating this issue using an interdisciplinary and integrated approach, it is also crucial to study the value-generation involved from a perspective able to disentangle what happen both at macro and micro level. In other terms we need a clear distinction between what is commonly called social capital and what is better known as relational capital. In this chapter we focus on the latter by analysing the point of view of the trustee on the bases of the goal oriented theory of trust. We developed a cognitive model of trust to explain why it represents a form of power and, then, a strong asset for individuals acting in a network. Finally, we propose some experimental future works based on this analysis and involving both laboratory experiments and multi-agents systems simulations.
Recent conceptualizations of trends in the structure of U.S. industry have focused on the relative importance of markets, hierarchies, and hybrid intermediate forms. This paper advances the discussion by distinguishing three ideal-typical forms of organization and their corresponding coordination mechanisms: market/price, hierarchy/authority, and community/trust. Different institutions combine the three forms/mechanisms in different proportions. Economic and organizational theory have shown that, compared to trust, price and authority are relatively ineffective means of dealing with knowledge-based assets. Therefore, as knowledge becomes increasingly important in our economy, we should expect high-trust institutional forms to proliferate.
A review of trends in employment relations, interdivisional relations, and interfirm relations finds evidence suggesting that the effect of growing knowledge-intensity may indeed be a trend toward greater reliance on trust. There is also reason to believe that the form of trust most effective in this context is a distinctively modern kind—“reflective trust”—as opposed to traditionalistic, “blind” trust. Such a trend to reflective trust appears to threaten the privileges of currently dominant social actors, and these actors' resistance, in combination with the complex interdependencies between price, authority, and trust mechanisms, imparts a halting character to the trend. But the momentum of this trend nevertheless appears to be self-reinforcing, which suggests that it may ultimately challenge the foundations of our capitalist form of society while simultaneously creating the foundations of a new, postcapitalist form.
This theory-building paper focuses on a specific type of ICT-enabled participatory network, where citizens actively cooperate with an organisation (typically but not necessarily a public administration) to enhance the livability of their urban or rural environment. We have called these systems 'citizens to problem-solving organisation (C2PSO) networks' and argue that they are set to play a role of growing importance in some of the emerging urban and rural livability challenges. The authors present three different explorative case studies that focus on health, safety, independent living for the elderly, and mobility as indicators of place livability. The recurrent organisational factors identified in the case studies translate into key elements of success, the analysis of which highlighted three novel constructs as possible antecedents of improved livability in the living settings of C2PSO networks. The proposed constructs describe the organisational effectiveness of the network and the sustainability of the cooperative processes involved, and, in the authors' opinion, are a useful complement to the extant literature. For each novel construct, a quantitative measurement scale for survey questionnaires is developed and then discussed with experts for face validity. The paper closes with the description and discussion of a testable cause-effect model before presenting the authors' conclusions.
Simulation has been adopted in many disciplines as a means for understanding the behavior of a system by imitating it through an artificial object that exhibits a nearly identical behavior. Although simulation approaches have been widely adopted for theory building in disciplines such as engineering, computer science, management, and social sciences, their potential in the IS field is often overlooked. The aim of this paper is to understand how different simulation approaches are successfully used in IS research, thereby providing hypotheses that allow deriving methodological guidelines for subsequent studies. A survey of 69 pieces of IS research provides the grounding for defining a taxonomy of simulation approaches and for identifying possible application patterns linking simulation approaches to their theory contributions, research domains and information views.
The paper is centered on the role of technology and specifically of IT in the recombination of the factors of production. Particularly, the objective is to see how this technology contributes to the formulation of business
strategies, the outlining of organizational structures and the alignment with the business environment. A
theoretical framework is proposed that combines three perspectives. The first perspective stresses the
importance of digital architectures in the modalities through which firms organize for innovation. Second,
organization as a platform outlines a scenario for generating multiple organizational forms based on
recombination of existent resources, routines and transactions. Third, digital platforms are seen as determinant
tools for a dematerialization process that consents to recombine the factors of production for achieving a
competitive advantage. The Midblue project provides an illustrative example of how strategy, structure and
information technology co-evolve in organizations and how digital platforms can trigger transformation at both
strategic and organizational levels.
Far from simply being a concept useful in investigating social relationships, social networks are rapidly becoming a diffuse phenomenon to deal with in everyday life. The goal of this paper is to provide insights from the design research perspective, both for online and offline communities. Starting from the idea that the phenomenon under investigation emerges from the inter-action of autonomous agents in an environment in which other agents interact with each other in order to reach their own goals, we adopt a Multi-Agent Simulation (MAS) approach to study social networks dynamics of online and offline communities. In particular, we built an agent-based simulation of dependence networks, considered crucial for the interaction of cognitive agents and for the exchange of resources between them. As results we have been able both to better define some hypotheses on dependence networks dynamics and to highlight possible future research particularly useful for the design of digital platforms.
A growing body of literature describes the open sou rce phenomenon in the software industry. Drawing on transaction cost economics, we propose that open source projects illustrate a new generic governance structure — which we label bazaar governance — based on a specific legal contract: the open license. We characterize t his structure in terms of its strengths and weaknesses and compare it to market, firm and network forms. Low levels of control and weak incentives intensity are distinctive features of bazaar, lending a high uncertainty to governed transactions. However, bazaar governance promotes the openness of open source communities, which can generate strong positive net work externalities and subsequent efficiency in cumulative transactions. Our theoreti cal developments offer a potential basis for future research.
Growing research on Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) has addressed a variety of questions focussing on aspects ranging from open source development processes and developer motivation, to economic and policy-making implications. Nevertheless, a few authors have examined the adoption of FLOSS and its impact on organisational change and innovation. Adoption studies represent a particularly promising area for information system researchers to investigate the relationship between the specific properties of FLOSS and the processes of implementation and use. The goal of this paper is to contribute to this field of research by discussing a former multi-targeted research agenda and by defining an empirically grounded framework for studying FLOSS adoption, drawing on the outcomes of an exploratory multiple case study involving 16 Italian public administrations.
This chapter aims to contribute to the debate on the relationship between Information Systems (IS) and other Management (MGT) fields of studies. We present the preliminary results of the publication statistics, co-citation, and cross-citation analyses performed on a dataset of 54 and 169 “simulation related studies” published in top IS and MGT journals in the last thirty years. The analysis shows that this stream of research allows to comparatively analyze the evolutionary trends of research outcomes and impact, and to better understand the cumulative tradition of the knowledge creation process in the IS and MGT communities. Although research in IS is unlikely to build on and cite prior research, its influence on other fields is proportionally similar in magnitude to the external influence of MGT studies.
Simulation is an important method, but its link to theory development remains unclear and even controversial. Our purpose is to clarify when and how to use simulation methods in theory development. First, we develop a roadmap for conducting theory development using simulation methods. It ranges from selecting the research question and simple theory to conducting verification and validation. The primary value of simulation occurs in creative and systematic experimentation to produce novel theory. Second, we position simulation methods within the broad context of theory development. Simulation sits in the “sweet spot” between theory creating using methods such as multiple case inductive studies and formal modeling, and theory testing using methods such as multivariate statistical testing of hypotheses. We note the strengths of theory building using simulation including internal validity, experimentation to create new theory, and facility in coping with longitudinal, non-linear, and process phenomena, especially when empirical data are challenging to obtain. We also note simulation’s weaknesses such as external validity. We conclude with guidelines for evaluation that focus on the importance of theoretical contribution, strength of method, and the insights of the emergent theory.
In this paper, we present an abstract structure called dependence graph, an extension of the notion of dependence network, as proposed in [16]. While this latter can be applied to express a set of dependence relations of a single agent, this new structure can be applied to the multi-agent case. It can be used, therefore, for the study of emerging social structures, such as groups and collectives, and may form a knowledge base for managing complexity in both competitive and organisational or other cooperative contexts. We analyze several properties of this structure, relating them to some corresponding social phenomena regarding group formation and cohesiveness.
Cultural Heritage and Tourism Development may be strong driving factors for local policies and may have great importance in
strategic decision making at territorial level; then, they may be important subjects for eParticipation studies. But this
paper demonstrates, through a literature review, that today’s disciplinary shape of eParticipation as a research field is
not suitable to effectively investigate participatory processes related to Tourism and Cultural Heritage. Then, by presenting
a field research, which took place in the Italian city of Genoa, and by confronting its outcomes with some most widespread
disciplinary eParticipation underpinnings, the paper seeks to identify some areas where a widened disciplinary scope is particularly
needed. Finally, we propose a new disciplinary framework, suitable to address also Cultural Heritage and Tourism Development
eParticipation processes.
Trust can be viewed as an instrument both for an agent selecting the right partners in order to achieve its own goals (the
point of view of the trustier), and for an agent of being selected from other potential partners (the point of view of the
trustee) in order to establish with them a cooperation/ collaboration and to take advantage from the accumulated trust. In
our previous works we focused our main attention on the first point of view. In this paper we will analyze trust as the agents’
relational capital. Starting from the classical dependence network (in which needs, goals, abilities and resources are distributed among the
agents) with potential partners, we introduce the analysis of what it means for an agent to be trusted and how this condition
could be strategically used from it for achieving its own goals, that is, why it represents a form of power. Although there
is a big interest in literature about ‘social capital’ and its powerful effects on the wellbeing of both societies and individuals,
often it is not clear enough what is it the object under analysis. Individual trust capital (relational capital) and collective
trust capital not only should be disentangled, but their relations are quite complicated and even conflicting. To overcome
this gap, we propose a study that first attempts to understand what trust is as capital of individuals. In which sense “trust” is a capital. How this capital is built, managed and saved. In particular, how this capital is the
result of the others’ beliefs and goals. Then we aim to analytically study the cognitive dynamics of this object.
In this introductory note, we describe the motivation for this special issue on complex systems. We begin by noting the potential management opportunities offered by recent advances in complexity science. After defining the nature of complex systems and the many ways they are expressed in organizations and markets, we briefly describe the main tools and concepts of complexity theory. We close with a brief review of the articles in this issue and their relevance to the interests and concerns of managers.
The co-evolution of information systems (IS) and the processes that underpin the
construction and development of IT systems are explained from a complex systems
perspective. Evolution operates at the microscopic level; in organizations, this is the
individual or agent. Each agent has an idiosyncratic view of the organization, using to
some extent personal constructs in dealing with the reality of organizational life. These
objects or constructs can be described and measured by most agents; they are well
defined. Many of these objects are represented in electronic, IT systems. Each agent also
has their own view as to how they know what they know, that is, their epistemology, which
we argue is their IS, and is wider than the IT systems they use. The IS of each agent coevolves, by interaction with other agents, based on the agent’s view of reality. The
interaction of all agents constitutes the organization. Even more importantly, different
values and interests motivate each agent. This is their axiology and it is what motivates
them to learn and to develop their IS. An agent-based axiological framework is essential to
understanding the evolution of organizations. It is the interaction of agents that builds
consensus as to the shared reality of the organization, and this affects each agent’s ability
and motivation to evolve IS further. In addition, we propose that it is time that IT systems
included modelling capabilities, based on multi-agent representations of the organization
and its context, to explore and support strategic thinking and decision making.
Journal of Information Technology (2006) 21, 229–238. doi:10.1057/palgrave.jit.2000075
Research on virtual teams (VTs) has proliferated in the last decades. However, few clear and consistent theoretical attempts to integrate the literature on VTs in a systemic way have emerged. This paper uses the complex adaptive systems (CAS) perspective to integrate the literature on emergent states in VTs. According to this general framework, VT effectiveness depends on the interaction between three levels of dynamics: local, global and contextual. Team cognition, trust, cohesion and conflict are described as states that emerge from the interactions among the VT members and as parts of global dynamics,
they impact on VT effectiveness, and in the same time they are influenced by the outcomes
of the VT. The insights on this bidirectional causality as well as other benefits of using the CAS framework to improve our understanding of VTs are discussed in the paper. It also provides an overview of artificial simulation models as well as simulation results concerning the emergence of the four states described in the CAS framework and discusses several ways to improve the accuracy of the simulation models using empirical data collected in real VTs.
This paper develops a perspective to modeling team processes by drawing on concepts from team theory, and the informational processing and organizational paradigms. In such a perspective, humans and their interactions in a team are modeled as objects in a computerized environment. The behavior of the objects are specified in terms of the executable programs. A simulation testbed is described. Various information structures for team decision making in an example financial domain are examined. Questions regarding the relationship between information structure (who (knows) what, when, and how (the information is used)) and team performance are studied for the example. Thus this study can be seen as a step in the translation of behavioral and normative viewpoints of team decision making into a computational framework.
The results indicate that there are complex relationships between information structure and team performance. The conventional wisdom relating improved performance to more information is not always true. The experiments demonstrate several situations of team interaction where more information can lead to dysfunctional effects.
Globally Distributed Teams are being increasingly used by organizations to carry out knowledge intensive work and are often engaged in the development of modular products and services. While modularity is always treated as a given property of products and services, the findings of our qualitative research conducted in a GDT in charge of developing a new software product suggest that team members develop different perceptions of modularity, that, in turn, are related to different perceptions of interactions and team configuration. These different perceptions bring about difficulties in coordination and knowledge sharing.
This book provides an introduction, discussion, and formal-based modelling of trust theory and its applications in agent-based systems. This book gives an accessible explanation of the importance of trust in human interaction and, in general, in autonomous cognitive agents including autonomous technologies. The authors explain the concepts of trust, and describe a principled, general theory of trust grounded on cognitive, cultural, institutional, technical, and normative solutions. This provides a strong base for the author's discussion of role of trust in agent-based systems supporting human-computer interaction and distributed and virtual organizations or markets (multi-agent systems). Key Features: Provides an accessible introduction to trust, and its importance and applications in agent-based systems. Proposes a principled, general theory of trust grounding on cognitive, cultural, institutional, technical, and normative solutions. Offers a clear, intuitive approach, and systematic integration of relevant issues. Explains the dynamics of trust, and the relationship between trust and security. Offers operational definitions and models directly applicable both in technical and experimental domains. Includes a critical examination of trust models in economics, philosophy, psychology, sociology, and AI. This book will be a valuable reference for researchers and advanced students focused on information and communication technologies (computer science, artificial intelligence, organizational sciences, and knowledge management etc.), as well as Web-site and robotics designers, and for scholars working on human, social, and cultural aspects of technology. Professionals of ecommerce systems and peer-to-peer systems will also find this text of interest.
Complex organizations exhibit surprising, nonlinear behavior. Although organization scientists have studied complex organizations for many years, a developing set of conceptual and computational tools makes possible new approaches to modeling nonlinear interactions within and between organizations. Complex adaptive system models represent a genuinely new way of simplifying the complex. They are characterized by four key elements: agents with schemata, self-organizing networks sustained by importing energy, coevolution to the edge of chaos, and system evolution based on recombination. New types of models that incorporate these elements will push organization science forward by merging empirical observation with computational agent-based simulation. Applying complex adaptive systems models to strategic management leads to an emphasis on building systems that can rapidly evolve effective adaptive solutions. Strategic direction of complex organizations consists of establishing and modifying environments within which effective, improvised, self-organized solutions can evolve. Managers influence strategic behavior by altering the fitness landscape for local agents and reconfiguring the organizational architecture within which agents adapt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Copyright of Organization Science is the property of INFORMS: Institute for Operations Research and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
Most of the major successes in IS field have occurred outside the scope of academic research (and of consulting activities). The central thesis of this paper is that such a "crisis of relevance" of IS research is (also) due to the quaint epistemological status that the discipline inherited from social sciences. Two epistemological approaches, in fact, are being put in practice in IS field research today: positivism and interpretivism. These are glorious and consistent approaches, but they are both rooted in a nineteenth-century, old-fashioned vision of science (the former to carry on its tradition, the latter to criticize and subvert it). Furthermore, positivism and interpretivism, by their own basic assumptions, deny validity to each other's outcomes, and this results in a sort of "epistemological apartheid" that causes further damages to the discipline. Is a different epistemological approach possible? A new one, seeking to better receive the extraordinary amount of complex, original contributions that the last century has supplied about the question "how do we know?" The paper attempts to trace some essential lines of a proposal, and gives some very brief, but concrete examples about a new, "eco-humanistic" approach to IS research.
We argue that under certain circumstances crowdsourcing transforms distant search into local search, improving the efficiency and effectiveness of problem solving. Under such circumstances a firm may choose to crowdsource problem solving rather than solve the problem internally or contract it to a designated supplier. These circumstances depend on the characteristics of the problem, the knowledge required for the solution, the crowd, and the solutions to be evaluated.
This special issue originated with the 1996 Organization Science Winter Conference (OSWC), which set out to explore the implications of the science of complexity for the field of organization studies. Following the OSWC, a formal program organized by the Organization Science section of INFORMS took place in Atlanta. The vast potential for complexity theory to inform and transform research in organization studies became evident from the discussions of 22 papers that were presented at that meeting. In response to the call for papers issued after the Atlanta meeting, 56 papers were submitted to Organization Science, of which seven make up this issue.
Interest in complexity has grown dramatically since the 1996 OSWC first explored this idea. The purpose of this special issue is not to declare that a new era in organization studies and strategic management is at hand, but to explore the boundaries and links between the science of complexity—with its origin in evolution and biology—and the field of strategy and organization. The issue explores the implications of complexity research for organization studies in the context of new ways of modeling dynamic, nonlinear complex systems for advancing theoretical and empirical research in organization studies (e.g., theorizing within coevolutionary frameworks, decomposition of nested phenomena, multidirectional causalities).
This paper treats organizations as adaptive systems that have to match the complexity of their environments. The nature of this complexity is analyzed by linking an institutional Information-Space (I-Space) framework to the work of complexity theorists. The I-Space framework identifies the codification, abstraction, and diffusion of information as cultural attributes. Codification involves the assignment of data to categories, thus giving them form. Abstraction involves a reduction in the number of categories to which data needs to be assigned for a phenomenon to be apprehended. Information is diffused through populations of data-processing agents, thus constituting the diffusion dimension. Complexity theorists have identified the stability and structure of algorithmic information complexity in a way that corresponds to levels of codification and abstraction. Their identification of system parts and the richness of cross-coupling draws attention to the fabric of information diffusion. We discuss two modes of adaptation to complex environments: complexity reduction and complexity absorption. Complexity reduction entails getting to understand the complexity and acting on it directly, including attempts at environmental enactment. Complexity absorption entails creating options and risk-hedging strategies, often through alliances.
The analysis, and its practical utility, is illustrated with reference to China, the world's largest social system. Historical factors have shaped the nature of complexity in China, giving it very different characteristics than those typical of Western industrial countries. Its organizations and other social units have correspondingly handled this complexity through a strategy of absorption rather than the reduction strategy characteristic of Western societies. Western firms operating in China therefore face a choice between maintaining their norms of complexity reduction or adopting a strategy of complexity absorption that is more consistent with Chinese culture. The specifics of these policy alternatives are explored, together with their advantages and disadvantages.
The paper concludes with the outlines of a possible agenda for future research, focusing on the investigation of complexity-handling modes and the contingencies which may bear upon the choice between them.
Complex organizations exhibit surprising, nonlinear behavior. Although organization scientists have studied complex organizations for many years, a developing set of conceptual and computational tools makes possible new approaches to modeling nonlinear interactions within and between organizations. Complex adaptive system models represent a genuinely new way of simplifying the complex. They are characterized by four key elements: agents with schemata, self-organizing networks sustained by importing energy, coevolution to the edge of chaos, and system evolution based on recombination. New types of models that incorporate these elements will push organization science forward by merging empirical observation with computational agent-based simulation. Applying complex adaptive systems models to strategic management leads to an emphasis on building systems that can rapidly evolve effective adaptive solutions. Strategic direction of complex organizations consists of establishing and modifying environments within which effective, improvised, self-organized solutions can evolve. Managers influence strategic behavior by altering the fitness landscape for local agents and reconfiguring the organizational architecture within which agents adapt.
In this paper, two different views of sociality, one based upon interferences, and the other based upon complementarity, or interdependence, are confronted. The latter is shown to present a number of theoretical advantages over the former, allowing for an account of different types of social actions— influencing, exchange, cooperation—and of how these emerge from structural social conditions. A formal model of dependence relations is presented, and an algorithm for calculating the dependence networks and situations in a multi‐agent context is briefly shown. A simulator of dependence relations, which edits a set of agents (in terms of their goals, actions, and plans) and applies the algorithm to calculate their dependence relations relative to any given goal, is described, and its applications are discussed. Some elementary simulations are exemplified in order to illustrate the experimental application of the simulator in a two‐agent context. Future expansions of the simulator are finally discussed.
Service systems are value-co-creation configurations of people, technology, value propositionsconnecting internal and external
service systems, and shared information (e.g., language, laws, measures, and methods). Service science is the study of service
systems, aiming to create a basis for systematicservice innovation. Service science combines organization and human understanding
with business andtechnological understanding to categorize and explain the many types of service systems that exist as wellas
how service systems interact and evolve to co-create value. The goal is to apply scientific understandingto advance our ability
to design, improve, and scale service systems. To make progress, we think servicedominantlogic provides just the right perspective,
vocabulary, and assumptions on which to build a theory ofservice systems, their configurations, and their modes of interaction.
Simply put, service-dominant logicmay be the philosophical foundation of service science, and the service system may be its
basic theoreticalconstruct.
KeywordsService science-Service systems-Service-dominant logic
This paper applies the two-party dependence theory (Castelfranchi, Cesta and Miceli, 1992, in Y. Demazeau and E. Werner (Eds.) Decentralized AI-3, Elsevier, North Holland) to modelling multiagent and group dependence. These have theoretical potentialities for the study of emerging groups and collective structures, and more generally for understanding social and organisational complexity, and practical utility for both social-organisational and agent systems purposes. In the paper, the dependence theory is extended to describe multiagent links, with a special reference to group and collective phenomena, and is proposed as a framework for the study of emerging social structures, such as groups and collectives. In order to do so, we propose to extend the notion of dependence networks (applied to a single agent) to dependence graphs (applied to an agency). In its present version, the dependence theory is argued to provide (a) a theoretical instrument for the study of social complexity, and (b) a computational system for managing the negotiation process in competitive contexts and for monitoring complexity in organisational and other cooperative contexts.
Recent conceptualizations of trends in the structure of U.S. industry have focused on the relative importance of markets, hierarchies, and hybrid intermediate forms. This paper seeks to advance the discussion by distinguishing three ideal-typical forms of organization and their corresponding key coordination mechanism: market/price, hierarchy/authority, and community/trust. Different institutions combine the three forms/mechanisms in different proportions. Economic and organizational theory have shown that compared to trust, price and authority are relatively ineffective mechanisms for dealing with assets that are based on knowledge. As knowledge becomes increasingly important in our economy, we should therefore expect high-trust institutional forms to proliferate. A review of trends in employment relations, interdivisional relations, and inter-firm relations finds evidence suggesting that the effect of growing knowledge-intensity may indeed be such a trend towards greater reliance on trust. There is also reason to believe that the form of trust most effective in this context is of a distinctively modern kind - "reflective trust" - as opposed to a traditionalistic, blind trust. Such a trend to reflective trust appears to threaten the privileges of currently dominant social actors, and these actors' resistance, in combination with the complex interdependencies between price, authority, and trust mechanisms, imparts a halting character to the trend. But the momentum of this trend nevertheless appears to be self-reinforcing, which suggests that it may ultimately come to challenge the foundations of our capitalist form of society while simultaneously creating the foundations of a new, post-capitalist form.
Continuing his exploration of the organization of complexity and the science of design, this new edition of Herbert Simon's classic work on artificial intelligence adds a chapter that sorts out the current themes and tools -- chaos, adaptive systems, genetic algorithms -- for analyzing complexity and complex systems. There are updates throughout the book as well. These take into account important advances in cognitive psychology and the science of design while confirming and extending the book's basic thesis: that a physical symbol system has the necessary and sufficient means for intelligent action. The chapter "Economic Reality" has also been revised to reflect a change in emphasis in Simon's thinking about the respective roles of organizations and markets in economic systems.
Simulating multi-agent interdependencies. a two-way approach to the micro-macro Microsimulation and the Social Science
- R Conte
- C Castelfranchi
Dependence Graphs: Dependence Within and Between Groups. Computational Mathematical Organization Theory
- R Conte
- J S Sichman
Conte, R., Sichman, J.S.: Dependence Graphs: Dependence Within and Between
Groups. Computational Mathematical Organization Theory. 8, 87–112 (2002).
A design theory for e-Service environments: the interoperability challenge
- P Spagnoletti
- S Za
Being trusted in a social network: Trust as relational capital
- C Castelfranchi
- R Falcone
- F Marzo
Castelfranchi, C., Falcone, R., Marzo, F.: Being trusted in a social network: Trust as
relational capital. In: Stølen, K., Winsborough, W.H., Martinelli, F., and Massacci, F.
(eds.) Trust Management -Lecture Notes in Computer Science Volume 3986. pp. 19-32 (2006).