Supporting Virtual Enterprise Systems Using Agent Coordination

International audienceOpen environments like the Internet or corporate intranets enable a large number of interested enterprises to access, filter, process, and present information on an as-needed basis. These environments support modern applications, such as virtual enterprises and inter-organizational workflow management systems, which involve a number of heterogeneous resources, services, and processes. However, any execution of a virtual enterprise system would yield to disjoining and error-prone behavior without appropriate techniques to coordinate the various business processes. This paper reports on the design and implementation of a flexible agent-based framework for supporting the coordination of virtual enterprises and workflow management systems. The paper also shows how an agent coordination infrastructure, which is explained by social constraints, can impact on the engineering of highly dynamic virtual enterprises and workflow management systems by presenting a simple case study

Delegating Responsibility

Delegating Responsibility explores the politics of migration in the European Union and explains how the EU responded to the 2015–17 refugee crisis. Based on 86 interviews and fieldwork in Greece and Italy, Nicholas R. Micinski proposes a new theory of international cooperation on international migration. States approach migration policies in many ways—such as coordination, collaboration, subcontracting, and unilateralism—but which policy they choose is based on capacity and on credible partners on the ground. Micinski traces the fifty-year evolution of EU migration management, like border security and asylum policies, and shows how EU officials used “crises” as political leverage to further Europeanize migration governance. In two in-depth case studies, he explains how Italy and Greece responded to the most recent refugee crisis. He concludes with a discussion of policy recommendations regarding contemporary as well as long-term aspirations for migration management in the EU

From Simplistic to Complex Systems in Economics

The applicability of complex systems theory in economics is evaluated and compared with standard approaches to economic theorizing based upon constrained optimization. A complex system is defined in the economic context and differentiated from complex systems in physio-chemical and biological settings. It is explained why it is necessary to approach economic analysis from a network, rather than a production and utility function perspective, when we are dealing with complex systems. It is argued that much of heterodox thought, particularly in neo-Schumpeterian and neo-Austrian evolutionary economics, can be placed within a complex systems perspective upon the economy. The challenge is to replace prevailing 'simplistic' theories, based in constrained optimization, with 'simple' theories, derived from network representations in which value is created through the establishment of new connections between elements.

TEAMLOG in Action:a Case Study in Teamwork

This article presents a case study of a theoretical multi-agent system designed to clean up ecological disasters. It focuses on the interactions within a heterogeneous team of agents, outlines their goals and plans, and establishes the necessary distribution of information and commitment throughout the team, including its sub-teams. These aspects of teamwork are presented in the TEAMLOG formalism [20], based on multi-modal logic, in which collective informational and motivational attitudes are first-class citizens. Complex team attitudes are justified to be necessary in the course of teamwork. The article shows how to make a bridge between theoretical foundations of TEAMLOG and an application and illustrates how to tune TEAMLOG to the case study by establishing sufficient, but still minimal levels for the team attitudes

Intermediate Institutions for Interactive Learning Processes in a Governance Perspective: the Case of Aeronautic Industry in Campania Region.

The present paper presents the results of the empirical analysis on fifteen enterprises and twenty no-industrial organizations involved at different level in the Aeronautical Cluster in the Campania Region. Information and data on the selected sample are colleted both by a study of the industrial sector, and also by suitable questionnaires and interviews, that the authors have submitted to the entrepreneurs and to the top managers of either the enterprises or the no-industrial organizations. The authors have focalized their study by applying the SWOT analysis on the following issues: • the cluster’s structure by analysing the relational skill developed by single actors of the cluster and by their impact on the innovation capacity of the enterprises; • the effectiveness of cluster’s governance strategies and how different actors actually participate to the local development processes of the aeronautical industrial sector. On these bases the authors wanted to deduce possible policy options for different kind of actors to optimize the cluster’s governance. Particularly they will describe in the present paper some indications to: 1) the SME’s that present strong relations with customers but low integration with large part of the others actors, i.e. with no-customers enterprises; 2) the large enterprises related to the industrial policies and to the suppliers' governance; 3) the policy makers at local level and the intermediate institutions for a better support of the local enterprises. In fact, the research results are based on the conscientious awareness that the analyzed sector is at a critical point, for which it is necessary that all the actors involved put together their efforts in order to steer and to direct the development process, both by identifying participative mechanisms at local level and also by strengthening those exogenous elements which are able to promote local development. Obviously only part of the criticisms can be solved at local and national level and some of them can be solved only partially. This observation opens the question of policy at the international level which can be determinate only with a more exhaustive integration into transnational networks. The research described in the present paper has been undertaken within the framework of the project: “IKINET – International Knowledge and Innovation Network†(EU FP6, N° CIT2-CT-2004-506242).

Export opportunities: women workers organising in the Philippine garments industry

Transnational production arrangements have been widely argued to lessen the organising capacities of industrial workers, none more so than in the case of women workers in 'export' or 'world market' factories in developing countries. This thesis contests this assertion by showing that women workers' ability to form enterprise unions in the Philippine garments industry are enhanced by transnational production arrangements involving an overseas market. Specifically, the thesis demonstrates that, in order to meet the quality and delivery requirements of overseas buyers and contractors, local owners and/or production managers are forced to routinely keep more production in-house in order to exert more direct controls over the work processes of their women sewers. By thereby limiting the amount of local subcontracting which is done, women workers are agglomerated in larger numbers in the one place and, consequently, their capacities to engage in collective action - as indicated by the establishment of enterprise unions - is markedly increased. Empirically, the argument of the thesis draws on a 'multiple-case' study of sixty-five garment-making establishments located in and around Manila. The study involved interviews with owners, production managers and/or trade union officials about the local subcontracting practices of their establishments. The conclusions drawn about the links between export production and enhanced labour organising capacities at the enterprise level are corroborated by the 'commodity chain' literature on industrial deepening in the international garments industry and the status of the Philippine industry in this regard. But rather than think simply in terms of industrial deepening, this thesis is concerned with the impacts of exporting on class processes. Theoretically, the thesis thus draws on the Marxist view that capitalist development entails changes in the social form of labour, through the real subsumption of labour. But, whereas Marx linked the real subsumption of labour to greater capitalist controls over the labour process, in this thesis the real subsumption of labour is also tied to concomitant changes in the spatial form of the labour process. From this standpoint, the thesis engages with labour process theory after Braverman (accusing it of often failing to link capitalist control to class processes) and with theories of class (which often ignore the social and spatial form of the labour process). In tying organising capacities of women workers at the enterprise level to changes in social and spatial form of the labour process, it is nevertheless argued that these capacities are also shaped at the national level by the legal framework for legitimate organising and by 'political space' in which the law in fact operates. In this regard, it is argued that, whilst the state often passes laws to protect labour standards, it does not grant workers the means to ensure such standards are actually enforced. The thesis also challenges the view that the recruitment of women is a strategy which employers deliberately use in the Philippine garments industry to limit industrial conflict. Against this assertion of a rational economic basis to women's employment, the thesis argues that women are employed for sewing jobs as a result of the sex-typing of such jobs; but that this is also more an effect than a cause as the feminisation of sewing in the modern garments industry is embedded in class processes in the nineteenth century in Europe and the United States. Gender is a dimension of labour control, but women workers in the garments industry are not employed to limit enterprise unionism

Union responses to subcontracted workers : a comparative study of the English and Korean health sectors

The research presented in this thesis is a study of union responses to subcontracted labour in England and Korea. Subcontracting leads to separation of employers, and places existing union structures and resources, and traditional collective bargaining systems under strain. A study of union representation in relation to subcontracted workers is important because it can address how unions deal with more complex employment relationships. This also helps explore which factors contribute to patterns of union responses. This research conducted a comparative study of eight branches of the largest unions in the English and Korean health sectors with different institutional settings. This employed qualitative case studies using fifty-three semi-structured interviews, observation, and document analysis. Evidence showed that typical responses between the two varied, but there were also two outlying cases in Korea, showing similar responses to those in England. Differences in the institutional contexts of the source of restructuring, legal regulations, collective bargaining systems and union structures explained why English union branches adopted more inclusive strategies toward subcontracted workers than those in Korea. However, empirical evidence showed that union responses were also influenced by some non-institutional factors such as branch leadership, the attitude of the represented and effective working with allies in the community. Despite the importance of institutions in shaping union responses, they are not sufficient alone to explain variations in union responses and it is necessary to consider an integrated approach considering both institutional and non-institutional factors in a single analytical framework. This study contributes to the field of comparative industrial relations research in three ways. First, it extends the scope of research on union responses to contingent workers by investigating responses to subcontracted workers. Second, it goes beyond classifying union responses by presenting their underlying dynamics. Third, it challenges existing ways of conducting comparative industrial relations studies predicated upon the staple proposition that ‘institutions matter’, highlighting the importance of an integrated approach