1. A Normative and Intentional Agent Model for Organisation Modelling
Joaquim Filipe
School of Technology
Polytechnic Institute of Setúbal
Portugal
September 16-17, ESAW-2002 : Engineering Societies in the Agents World 2002

2. Introduction
Organisations are multi-agent systems composed by individual agents in social settings.
Organisational agents can be individual or collective. A collective agent defines a (shared) information field.
Social psychology provides a normative agent model.
There is an adequate formal support (logic) for each model component. Agent implementation is supported on theory.
September 16-17, 2002
ESAW Engineering Societies in the Agents World

3. Organisations are Information Systems
INFORMAL IS: a sub-culture where meanings are established, intentions are understood, beliefs are formed and commitments with responsibilities are made, altered and discharged
FORMAL IS: bureaucracy where form and rule replace meaning and intention
IT System: Mechanisms to automate part of the formal system
Three main layers of the real information system (Stamper 1996)
September 16-17, 2002
ESAW Engineering Societies in the Agents World

4. Information Fields Information Field:
System of norms accepted by a community
Shared ontology
Information Fields may overlap
Information Fields can be populated by
Individual agents,
Collective agents (=>nested IFs).
Abstract agents (roles)
September 16-17, 2002
ESAW Engineering Societies in the Agents World

5. Interest Alignment Several interests may be at stake simultaneously.
Example:
Org.1
Ind.1
Ind.2
Org.2
- Org.1 may have interest in situation A
while Ind.1 may be interested in situation B
If A  B it’s ok, otherwise there is a clash of interests
- Ind.2 may be subject to contradictory norms
September 16-17, 2002
ESAW Engineering Societies in the Agents World

6. Social Psychology Classification of Norms
Norms can be:
Perceptual
Cognitive
Behavioral
Evaluative
Corresponding intentional attitudes:
Ontological: to acknowledge the existence of something
Epistemic: to adopt a degree of belief
Deontic: to be disposed to act in some way
Axiological: to be disposed in favor or against something in value terms
September 16-17, 2002
ESAW Engineering Societies in the Agents World

7. EDA Agent Model This structure applies to Individual agents
Collective agents
Abstract agents (roles)
September 16-17, 2002
ESAW Engineering Societies in the Agents World

8. Knowledge Representation
Epistemic component (Beliefs)
Non-monotonic Logic; belief revision.
Belief operator
Deontic component (Obligations)
Deontic Agency Logic
Agentive Obligation operator
Axiologic component (Values)
Prioritised Default Logic (norms as default rules)
Preference defined by a partial order on norms
September 16-17, 2002
ESAW Engineering Societies in the Agents World

9. Why does an Agent Act? Individual Goals (intentional) or Social Obligations (normative) ?
September 16-17, 2002
ESAW Engineering Societies in the Agents World

10. Individual Interests, Social Interests and Goals
The individual and the social motivations of agent behaviour are unified under the notion of obligation, based on the assumptions that
both individual and collective agents have interests, and
individual duties are collective interests on information fields the individual agent belongs to.
Agenda Achievement Goals are:
agent interests (self or “inherited”), which
the agent is aware of and which
the agent prefers (values as positive in rational terms).
September 16-17, 2002
ESAW Engineering Societies in the Agents World

11. Advantages of the EDA Model
Is a social model with sound theoretical support: The model is based in social psychology theory.
The Deontic component provides, directly, the means for representing social connections, instead of creating new concepts such as commitments, conventions, etc.
Unifies individual and social motivations under the concept of obligation
This reduces the number of needed concepts, when compared to other agent models such as BDI (which uses two “motivational” operators).
The same model structure (EDA) can be used for individual and collective agents,
This enables a simple recursive structure for organisational models, where individual models inherit norms from collective models.
September 16-17, 2002
ESAW Engineering Societies in the Agents World

12. Conclusions and Further Work
The EDA model structure is based upon known building blocks (social psychology theories, knowledge representation paradigms,...)
Model accomodates social relationships directly,
The interaction of the model components seems to be intuitive but remains to be formalised,
Current implementations must be developed and applied to real-world problems.
September 16-17, 2002
ESAW Engineering Societies in the Agents World