Virtual Enterprise Normative Framework within Electronic ... - IRIT

Virtual Enterprise Normative
Framework within Electronic
Institutions
Henrique Lopes Cardoso 1,2 , Eugénio Oliveira 1
hlc@ipb.pt, eco@fe.up.pt
1
LIACC, Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto
2
Polytechnic Institute of Bragança

Outline
VO/VE and MAS
Electronic Institutions
E-contracting and VE contracts
Normative Framework
VE Contract specification
Current work
Agent society perspective
Open issues
ESAW'04 2

Virtual Organizations/Enterprises
VO/VE concept
Applied to many forms of cooperative business relations, like outsourcing,
supply chains, or temporary consortiums
Definition
“a temporary consortium of autonomous, diverse and possibly geographically
dispersed organizations that pool their resources to meet short-term objectives and
exploit fast-changing market trends” [Davulcu et al., 1999]
Consortium contract [Portuguese legislation]
entities coordinate their efforts towards accomplishing some activity
consortium types:
External: new entity represents joint activity to third parties
Internal: consortium’s goal does not include supply of goods to third parties
(although the members’ goals might)
ESAW'04 3

VE Lifecycle
Business definition
client need; market opportunity
Formation
goal definition; selection of
participants through negotiation;
roles and obligations
Operation
business development
Regulation
adjustments in consortium structure
(exit/entrance of partners)
Dissolution
goals accomplished; VE no longer
justified
ESAW'04 4

MAS and VO/VE
Autonomous agents as enterprises:
represent individual interests of an enterprise
negotiate in order to constitute a VO
cooperate by coordinating their activities, fulfilling the VO purpose
Normative perspective
agents are heterogeneous, independently developed and privately
owned
Need for normative systems that enable trust
agents follow norms or suffer consequences
agents commit to cooperative agreements (business norms
regulating the consortium activity)
ESAW'04 5

Electronic Institutions
EI as an agent interaction framework
regulations
trustable environment
EI regulations
Identity of members
registration, digital signatures
Shared ontology specifications
domain-independent business terms and domain-specific vocabulary
Business norms
applicable to any business engagement
Negotiation protocols
for negotiating contract clauses, possibly requiring mediation
Contract specification
formal contractual requirements (representation, signatures, …)
ESAW'04 6

Electronic Institutions’ Services
Electronic Institution
Members
Negotiation
Protocols
Contract
templates
Ontologies
Business
norms
Contract
registry
Transaction
repository
Members’
reputation
Registration
Brokering
Negotiation
mediation
Contract validation /
registration (notary)
Contract monitoring
and enforcement
Reputation
ESAW'04 7

E-contracting
Definition
a contract is a formalization of the behaviour of a group of agents that jointly
agree on a specific business activity
E-contracts and norms
contracts form a normative structure
by contracting, agents commit to norms
E-contract handling and institutional services
Information discovery (pre-contractual phase)
brokering (yellow pages)
Contract negotiation (contractual phase)
templates; negotiation mediation; contract validation and registry (notary)
Execution (post-contractual phase)
contract monitoring and enforcement; transaction repository; reputation services
ESAW'04 8

E-contract specification
Usual approach
Normative concepts (from deontic logic): obligation, permission,
prohibition
+ sanction: making obligations (or prohibitions) effective
Normative statement [Sallé, 2002]
ns: ϕ θ s,b
(α < ψ)
appropriate for simple contracts (e.g. purchase):
ns1: O se,bu (deliver(product, quantity) < date(delivery_date))
ns2: fulfilled(ns1) O bu,se (pay(price) < date(delivery_date+30))
ns3: not_fulfilled(ns1) O se,bu (give_discount(-10%, price))
ns4: not_fulfilled(ns2) O bu,se (pay(+5%, price) < date(delivery_date+60))
⇒ What about complex (VE) contracts?
ESAW'04 9

VE Contracts
VE business relationship is more complex in nature than a simple
sell/purchase operation
ongoing (although limited) relationship between partners
cyclical interactions
deliberate contract termination
exit/entrance of partners during the VE lifecycle
establishment of contracts with third-parties
profit exchange
A two-level conception of VE contracts
VE constitution vs. operation
Constitutional contract establishes a cooperation agreement
Operational contracts implement the intended cooperation
ESAW'04 10

Normative Framework
Institutional norms (the law)
Virtual Enterprise constitution
(cooperation agreement)
framework against which a VE
contract can be validated
platform
Operational
of cooperation within which
contract
operational contracts between VE
participants (executable can be norms)
checked
actual exchanges of products/services,
which can be monitored
Contract
monitoring /
enforcement
Contract validation
ESAW'04 11

VE Contract specification
Focusing on the cooperation commitment:
VEContract =
Header (H): contract id, normative system, organization participants,
resources to be exchanged, signing date, digital signatures
H =
Partics = {Partic i }
Ress = {Res k }
Signs = {Sign i }
Cooperation effort (CoopEff): workload acceptance levels and associated
prices
CoopEff = {}
Wload =
Freq ∈ {per_day, per_week, per_month, per_year}
ESAW'04 12

VE Contract specification (2)
Business process (BP): flow of resources between participants
BP =
Request permits (ReqPerm): allowed requests that parties may perform towards
their partners
ReqPerm =
Who, Whom ∈ Partics; What ∈ Ress; ∈ CoopEff
Obligation chains (OblChain): implement the business transaction steps composing
the required workflow
activated by the enactment of request permits
can be regarded as templates for operational contracts (executable norms)
OblChain =
OblRule =
ESAW'04 13

Current work
Declarative representation for
institutional norms
VE constitutional and operational contracts
enabling
validation of contracts according to the normative framework
monitoring and enforcement of operational contracts
regulation of the VE lifecycle
Integrate institutional services
focus on contract handling
contract creation
templates
negotiation mediation
contract validation
contract monitoring/enforcement
transaction registration
sanction imposition
reputation mechanisms
ESAW'04 14

Agent society perspective
Normative framework for self-interested agents in
cooperative scenarios
Agent interaction regulated by institutions
EI provides a trustable environment by imposing and
enforcing norms
Agent cooperation agreements impose further norms
agents voluntarily commit to norms because organized
cooperation is in their interest
Agent operational contracts enact cooperation
by fulfilling executable norms agents carry out their
cooperation agreements
ESAW'04 15

Open issues
Relational contracting
formal contract: fully specified enforceable contract based on a third
party (EI)
relational contract: self-enforceable, based on the value of future
relationships
(How) can agents learn the level of detail for their contracts
according to past experience and agents’ reputations?
(How) can the EI impose certain specifications to non-fulfilling
agents?
Norm evolution
Can new institutional norms emerge from the continuous
operation of the EI?
ESAW'04 16