Virtual Organizations
Milind Tambe (USC)
Kathleen Carley (CMU)
Charles Perrow (Yale)
Russel Dynes (Delaware)
Tony Oliver-Smith (Florida)
Joe Scanlon (Carleton)
Syed Qadir (NRC, Coast Guard)
RESPONDING TO THE UNEXPECTED
NSF
FEB 28, 2002
Virtual Organizations
• Organizations that are:
– Dynamically emergent from elements drawn from multiple
existing institutions
– Distributed geographically, temporally, demographically
– Large
– Highly dynamic & adaptive (membership may change rapidly)
– To achieve a temporary (situationally) common goal
– Elements may be people, agents, robots, organizations
themselves, software & computational resources, equipment,
– Crisis teams, Informal distributed collaborative groups,
Networks, Informal organizations, Task force
• Why needed:
– No one organization possesses all required resources and skills
Examples
• Response group to 9/11 Flight 93 plane crash in Penn
– Included red cross, FEMA, local fire crew, local police, FBI…
• Gander, Newfoundland looks after diverted flights and
people on 9/11
• Response to Halifax explosion in Canada (1917) replaced
by a formal structure in 1918
– Virtual organization of govt, business,…
• Operation desert storm (Kuwait)
• Operation enduring freedom
• TIE group in response to DARPA’s call to build a mission
rehearsal system
Artificial Agents
• VOs may or may not include artificial agents
– Agents are goal-oriented, reactive, autonomous,
persistent, social entities (software or hardware),…
– Example:
• Synthetic interviewer for giving out information on
the web
• Collaborative sensor agents for various
environments (including nuclear radiations,
chemical and biological agents, pH of water,
biological concentration monitoring agent)
• Electronic broker: Matching supply and demand
• Personal assistant which can locate people,
schedule appointments
Research Issues
Three Categories
Investigating Virtual Organizations
– FORMATION
• How are they formed
• Who is a member, Gatekeepers
– STRUCTURE
• Role of leadership, flat or hierarchical
– OPERATION:
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•
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Given heterogeneity how do agents interact
How do they coordinate?
What makes them effective (or not)?
How do they allocate tasks
– DYNAMICS:
• How do they change
• where do they arise,
Agents Applied to Virtual Organizations
• Investigating role of agents as participants in VO
– Formation
• Locate needs, experts, resources, negotiate for acquisition
• Negotiate for acquisition of resources
• Aid in training personnel
– Operation
• Help in routine coordination, monitor performance, offer
support
• Provide information, guidance, security from threats
• Using multiagent systems to understand VOs
– To model and experimentally investigate Vos
– After action what-if analysis
– Planning and pre-testing response strategies
Agent Human Interface Issues
– How does insertion of agents affect organizational
decision making or social relationships
– Are there limits on agent authority, autonomy,
capabilities, and should there be limits?
– Adjustable autonomy
– Safety in operation of agents (esp given adaptation)
– Privacy
– Security (may conflict with privacy)