Commitments and Interaction Norms in Organisations

Abstract

In an organisational setting such as an online marketplace, an entity called the "organisation" or "institution" defines interaction protocols, monitors agent interaction, and may intervene to enforce the interaction protocols. This extended abstract summarises our JAAMAS article. In the article we generalise over application-specific protocols and consider commitment lifecycles as generic interaction protocols. We model interaction protocols by explicitly-represented norms, operationalise the enforcement of protocols by means of norm enforcement, and analyse the protocols by a logical analysis of the norms. We adopt insights and methods from commitment-based approaches to agent interaction as well as from norm-based approaches to agent behaviour governance. First, we show how to use explicitly-represented norms to model commitment dynamics (lifecycles). Second, we introduce an operational semantics to operationalise norm enforcement. Third, we show how to logically analyse interaction protocols by means of commitment dynamics and norm enforcement. The model, operational semantics, and logical analysis are illustrated by a running example from a vehicle insurance domain.