Simulating the Influence of Collaborative Networks on the Structure of Networks of Organizations, Employment Structure, and Organization Value

From the perspective of reindustrialization, it is important to understand the evolution of the structure of the network of organizations employment structure, and organization value. Understanding the potential influence of collaborative networks (CNs) on these aspects may lead to the development of appropriate economic policies. In this paper, we propose a theoretical approach to analysis this potential influence, based on a model of dynamic networked ecosystem of organizations encompassing collaboration relations among organization, employment mobility, and organization value. A large number of simulations has been performed to identify factors influencing the structure of the network of organizations employment structure, and organization value. The main findings are that 1) the higher the number of members of CNs, the better the clustering and the shorter the average path length among organizations; 2) the constitution of CNs does not affect neither the structure of the network of organizations, nor the employment structure and the organization value.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figure, conference paper at the 14th IFIP Working Conference on Virtual Enterprises, PRO-VE'13, http://www.pro-ve.org

Modeling Virtual Organization Architecture with the Virtual Organization Breeding Methodology

While Enterprise Architecture Modeling (EAM) methodologies become more and more popular, an EAM methodology tailored to the needs of virtual organizations (VO) is still to be developed. Among the most popular EAM methodologies, TOGAF has been chosen as the basis for a new EAM methodology taking into account characteristics of VOs presented in this paper. In this new methodology, referred as Virtual Organization Breeding Methodology (VOBM), concepts developed within the ECOLEAD project, e.g. the concept of Virtual Breeding Environment (VBE) or the VO creation schema, serve as fundamental elements for development of VOBM. VOBM is a generic methodology that should be adapted to a given VBE. VOBM defines the structure of VBE and VO architectures in a service-oriented environment, as well as an architecture development method for virtual organizations (ADM4VO). Finally, a preliminary set of tools and methods for VOBM is given in this paper.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figure

Agile and Pro-Active Public Administration as a Collaborative Networked Organization

In highly competitive, globalized economies and societies of always-on-line people intensively using the Internet and mobile phones, public administrations have to adapt to new challenges. Enterprises and citizens expect public administrations to be agile and pro-active to foster development. A way to achieve agility and pro-activity is application of a model of Collaborative Network Organizations in its two forms: Virtual Organizations (VO) and Virtual Organization Breeding Environments (VOBE). In the paper, advantages are shown of public administration playing a role of a Virtual Organization customer on the one hand, and a Virtual Organization member on the other hand. It is also shown how public administration playing a role of a Virtual Organization Breeding Environment may improve its agility and promote advanced technologies and management methods among local organizations. It is argued in the paper that public administration should provide a Virtual Organization Breeding Environment as a part of public services.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figure

Agile Professional Virtual Community Inheritance via Adaptation of Social Protocols

Support for human-to-human interactions over a network is still insufficient, particularly for professional virtual communities (PVC). Among other limitations, adaptation and learning-by-experience capabilities of humans are not taken into account in existing models for collaboration processes in PVC. This paper presents a model for adaptive human collaboration. A key element of this model is the use of negotiation for adaptation of social protocols modelling processes. A second contribution is the proposition of various adaptation propagation strategies as means for continuous management of the PVC inheritance.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figure

Social Protocols for Agile Virtual Teams, in

Abstract. Despite many works on collaborative networked organizations (CNOs), CSCW, groupware, workflow systems and social networks, computer support for virtual teams is still insufficient, especially support for agility, i.e. the capability of virtual team members to rapidly and cost efficiently adapt the way they interact to changes. In this paper, requirements for computer support for agile virtual teams are presented. Next, an extension of the concept of social protocol is proposed as a novel model supporting agile interactions within virtual teams. The extended concept of social protocol consists of an extended social network and a workflow model

Architecture of an ERP System Supporting Project-Oriented Management

Abstract. Existing ERP systems provide an IT solution to the management of enterprise resources based on the function-oriented management approach. With an increasingly wide adoption of the project-oriented management, new models are needed for ERP systems to support the management of enterprise resources in a project-oriented manner. This paper presents an architecture of an ERP system supporting project-oriented management. Two characteristics of the project-oriented management are integrated in the proposed architecture: first, social protocols are used to model interactions between actors (humans or software agents) within a given group. Second, the concept of group actions is detailed as a way to integrate group dynamics to social protocols

Resilient and Robust Human-Agent Collectives: A Network Perspective

Part 2: Agility and Resilience in Collaborative NetworksInternational audienceHuman and software agents are more and more often interacting in groups in which directives are originated as well as addressed by humans or software agents. Among challenges raised by the rise of such heterogeneous groups, referred to as Human-Agent Collectives (HACs), resilience and robustness remain an open question. In this paper, the factors that influence the resilience and robustness of HACs are identified based on former research concerning interdependent and complex networks. The two main factors identified in the paper are (1) interactions between HACs with their open-networked environment, (2) the structure of the interactions among members of the HACs