Norm conflicts and inconsistencies in virtual organisations

Abstract

Organisation-oriented approaches to the formation of multi-agent systems use roles and norms to describe an agent's social position within an artificial society or Virtual Organisation. Norms are descriptive information for a role - they determine the obligations and social constraints for an agent's actions. A legal instrument for establishing such norms are contracts signed by agents when they adopt one or more roles. A common problem in open Virtual Organisations is the occurrence of conflicts between norms - agents may sign different contracts with conflicting norms or organisational changes may revoke permissions or enact dormant obligations. Agents that populate such Virtual Organisations can remain operational only if they are able to resolve such conflicts. In this paper, we discuss, how agents can identify these conflicts and resolve them. © 2007 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.