Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
The relation Contains from the StructRelations set has the following properties: (i)
asymmetrical, since an OU cannot be contained in another OU that contains it; (ii)
transitive, because it is considered that an OU contained inside another OU is also
contained inside the predecessors of the OU that contains it; and (iii) irreflexive, since an
OU cannot contain itself. In a similar way, the RoleHier relation has the same properties
of the Contains relation, because a role cannot have an inheritance relation with itself,
the relations between roles are transitive to allow defining a complete role hierarchy
and a subordinated role cannot be the supervisor of its supervisor.
Properties of the Entities. Firstly, an organizational unit is contained inside another
OU, this implies that the roles from this OU are compatible with those of its predecessor
OU. Formally:
OU 1 , OU 2
OU : Contains ( OU 1 , OU 2 )
|∀
r 1
(4)
comp ( r 2 , r 1 )
It should be noted that the Roles relation is recursive: the roles that an OU offers are not
only its own roles, but also those from its predecessor OUs. Formally:
Roles ( OU 1 )
∧∀
r 2
Roles ( OU 2 )
o
OU :
r
Roles ( o )
r
Roles ( o )
r
Roles ( o 1 ) : o
Contains ( o 1 )
(5)
Properties of the OU. The relations between organizational units allow defining three
different types of structures of an organization:
- 'hierarchy' . A hierarchy implies that there is a supervisor role, with supervision
relations to all the other members of its same organizational unit (OU). Formally,
sup ( r , r ) . If a designer wants to make his
system tighter, he can also prohibit communications between subordinated roles.
- 'team' . In this kind of structure, all roles have coordination relations between them.
Formally, it is defined as
r
Roles ( OU ) :
r i
= r
Roles ( OU )
Roles ( OU ) : col ( r 1 , r 2 ) .
- 'plain' . This structure establishes information relationships between roles. For-
mally,
r 1 , r 2
r 1 , r 2
Roles ( OU ) : in f ( r 1 , r 2 ) .
Functional Dimension. The Functional Dimension details the specific functionality
of the system, based on services, tasks and objectives, as well as the interactions of
the system, activated by means of objectives or service usage. It allows defining the
functionality of organizational units, roles and agents of the MAS, including services
and objectives that these entities offer or consume.
Definition 3 . The Functional Dimension (FD) from the Organizational Structure of a
Virtual Organization is defined as FD =
G , S , Ta , FuncRel
where:
- G represents the goals followed by the organization.
- S is the set of services that the system offers or requires.
- Ta are the tasks that compose the services.
- F uncRel =
GT , Client , Provider , Obtains , Achieves , Task , Invoke , Plan
is the set
of relations of this dimension, where:
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