Applications of Multi-Agent Systems in Social Sciences: Virtual Enterprises as an Example

Abstract

When it comes to modeling social life, few paradigms are more suitable than multi-agent systems (MASs). MASs have helped gain a deeper understanding of countless social phenomena (through agent-based social simulation) that were hard to study using analytical approaches. More recently, MASs have evolved into handy assistants to the human users they can act on behalf of. One example of such use of MASs is in implementing virtual enterprises (VEs), i.e. temporary alliances of geographically distributed organizations created in order to exploit a specific business opportunity. Competition, negociation and cooperation mechanisms are usually copresent in the creation and operation of VEs, with individual members being simultaneously autonomous self-interested entities and parts of a larger whole, the benefits of which they are also trying to maximize. In turn, VEs have application areas such as commerce, manufacturing, and tourism, offering important contributions to the universal contemporary strife to obtain customer-driven products while optimizing time, costs, and quality. In this chapter, we aim to review the most important applications of MASs in social sciences, with a focus on VEs as a special case.