Coordination Mechanisms in Multi-Actor Systems

In multi-actor systems, coordinated action is achieved by processes of mutual adjustment that can take the form of organizing, planning, and improvisation. A plan can be seen as a social construct, a relatively persistent socially shared unit of knowledge, reinforced in its existence by its daily use. In order to be able to understand multi-actor planning this chapter investigates the questions (i) what representation types are necessary in multi-actor cooperation, (ii) how actors can achieve coordinated action using social constructs, (iii) how the planning activities of many actors can be made compatible in order to reach an acceptable, possibly distributed, coordinating plan, and (iv) how actors can set boundaries to the time and resources spent on planning based on an estimation of the costs and benefits of planning.