Alternative Dispute Resolution in Virtual Organizations

Networked systems are the driving force of modern business and commerce, underpinned by ideas such as agile enterprises, holonic manufacturing, and dynamic real-time supply chains. On occasions, the system operation will be sub-optimal or non-ideal, and disputes will occur between independent partners. It may be undesirable to resolve such disputes by recourse to law; preferably, the parties in dispute would settle the matter by themselves. Therefore, we develop an alternative dispute resolution (ADR) system for virtual organizations as a way of settling disputes internally. We provide a norm-governed specification of an ADR protocol which is, effectively, an intelligent agent-based autonomic system. We develop this specification in two ways: concretely, through description of the mechanisms underlying protocol operation; and abstractly, by considering how the specification addresses principles