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Communicational Patterns as Basis of Organizational Structures

  • Conference paper
Book cover Regulated Agent-Based Social Systems (RASTA 2002)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 2934))

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Abstract

Researchers in Distributed Artificial Intelligence have employed the notion of “organization” to guide the design of distributed software systems. There is a growing consciousness that MAS designers have to be aware of the social factors underlying the formal organizational design. The study presented in this paper attempts to contribute to this development threefold: on a conceptual level, we offer a notion of organizational structures grounded in the theory of social systems according to Niklas Luhmann. On a methodological level, we employ methods of social network analysis as a tool for the detection and operationalization of such structures. Empirically, we demonstrate what results can be obtained by this approach to the observation of communicational patterns. With this study, we exemplify the fruitfulness and the scope of the novel perspective on organization for the design of MAS.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Technology Assessment, Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg, Schwarzenbergstr. 95, 21071, Hamburg, Germany

    Steffen Albrecht & Maren Lübcke

Authors
  1. Steffen Albrecht
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  2. Maren Lübcke
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Computer Science, Humboldt-University Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Gabriela Lindemann

  2. Department of Informatics, University of Hamburg, Vogt-Kölln-Str. 30, D-22527, Hamburg

    Daniel Moldt

  3. Institute for Cognitive Science and Technology, Rome, Italy

    Mario Paolucci

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Albrecht, S., Lübcke, M. (2004). Communicational Patterns as Basis of Organizational Structures. In: Lindemann, G., Moldt, D., Paolucci, M. (eds) Regulated Agent-Based Social Systems. RASTA 2002. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 2934. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-25867-4_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-25867-4_2

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-20923-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-25867-4

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