Embodied Interactions: a Way to Model and Execute Complex and Changing Business Processes with Agents

Interaction refers to an abstract and intangible concept. In modelling, intangible concepts can be embodied and made explicit. This allows to manipulate the abstractions and to build predictable designs. Business processes in organisations are in fact reducible to interactions, especially when agent-oriented modelling methods are employed. Business processes represented as interaction structures can appear at different levels of abstraction. There is a compositional coupling between these levels, and this necessitates a method that allows dynamic de/re-composition of hierarchically organised interactions. We introduce the novel concepts that allow interaction-based diagramming and explain the syntax and semantics of these constructs. Finally, we argue that a business process decomposition with interactions allows more organisational flexibility and agent autonomy, providing a better approach in complex and ever-changing situations than current solutions.