Cooperative Knowledge Processing

In the light of the challenges that face today's organizations, there is a grow­ ing recognition that future market success and long term' survival of enter­ prises will increasingly depend upon the effective usage of information technology. Of late, a new generation of terminology has emerged to describe enterprises. This terminology draws heavily upon the virtual concep- virtual reality, virtual organization, virtual (working) environment, and indeed virtual product. However, developing computerized organisations for the 21st century demands serious thought with regard to the judicious integration of organizational theory, design and practice with research tools and methods from within information processing technology. Within this book, we approach this aim from the perspective of a radically decentralized (possibly virtual) enterprise. We assume that organizations are becoming increasingly process-orientated, rather than adhering to the former more traditional organizational structures based upon task oriented models. This approach has proved illuminating in that, due to the inherent autonomy of organizational subunits any approach to coordinating decentralized activ­ ities (including workflows and business processes) necessitates a cooperative style of problem solving. This book introduces the reader to a stimulating new field of interdiscipli­ nary research in cooperative problem solving. In Chapter 1 Kim presents a view of three central discip14tes, namely those of Organizational Theory, Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) and Distributed Artificial Intelligence (DAI). The applications given here demonstrate how future enterprises will benefit from recent advances in the technological arena of cooperative knowledge processing.

The establishment of more intelligent human organizations is one of the most important challenges for organizational research and information systems development today. The development of such "intelligent organizations" forms the central theme of this volume. Its thoroughly interdisciplinary approach embraces social science, CSCW database support for teamwork applications, organizational theory and distributed artificial intelligence. It emphasises the need for effective coordination of activities and presents the theoretical foundations of an integrated theory of coordination. Cooperative Knowledge Processing provides an up-to-date collection of contributions from leading researchers in this important area. It will be of particular interest to scientists and practitioners involved in organizational research, CSCW, business/information systems, Distributed Artificial Intelligence (DAI) and Multi-Agent Systems.