Supply chain formation presents difficult coordination issues for distributed negotiation protocols. Agents must simultaneously negotiate production relationships at multiple levels, with important interdependencies among inputs and outputs at each level. Combinatorial auctions address this problem by global optimization over expressed offers to engage in compound exchanges. A one-shot combinatorial auction that optimizes the reported value of the bids results in optimal allocations with truthful bids. But autonomous self-interested agents have an incentive to bid strategically in an attempt to gain extra surplus. We investigate a particular combinatorial protocol consisting of a one-shot auction and a strategic bidding policy. We experimentally analyze the efficiency and producer surplus obtained in five networks, and compare this performance to that of a distributed, progressive auction protocol with non-strategic bidding. We find that producers can sometimes gain significantly by bi...

Virtual" is a potent buzzword, freely applied to many situations, with many meanings. In this exploratory study, we develop a more precise understanding of "virtual" to describe changing work environments. Specifically, we propose a framework to classify work environments based on the type of discontinuities involved. Discontinuities are gaps or a lack of coherence in aspects of work. The framework allows us to compare research across different topics and work settings. We use the framework to classify 75 published articles on virtual work environments or earlier, related research streams. We observed that many studies were simultaneously addressing existing or emerging continuities, factors or strategies for overcoming discontinuities. The focus of "virtual" is on changes in the work environment; however, our analysis suggests the need to be equally aware of factors that have not changed and which may become more critical with the introduction of discontinuities.

Supply chain formation is the process of determining the structure and terms of exchange relationships to enable a multilevel, multiagent production activity. We present a simple model of supply chains, highlighting two characteristic features: hierarchical subtask decomposition, and resource contention. To decentralize the formation process, we introduce a market price system over the resources produced along the chain. In a competitive equilibrium for this system, agents choose locally optimal allocations with respect to prices, and outcomes are optimal overall. To determine prices, we define a market protocol based on distributed, progressive auctions, and myopic, non-strategic agent bidding policies. In the presence of resource contention, this protocol produces better solutions than the greedy protocols common in the artificial intelligence and multiagent systems literature. The protocol often converges to high-value supply chains, and when competitive equilibria exist, typically to approximate competitive equilibria. However, complementarities in agent production technologies can cause the protocol to wastefully allocate inputs to agents that do not produce their outputs. A subsequent decommitment phase recovers a significant fraction of the lost surplus.

ICTs) are reshaping many industries, often by reshaping how information is shared. Informationintensive industries, by their nature, show the greatest impacts due to ICTs that enable information sharing and the bypassing of traditional information intermediaries. However, while the effects and uses of ICT are often associated with organizations (and industries), their use occurs at the individual level. In other words, it is changes to individual work related to the use of ICTs that reshape both organization and industry structures, and vice versa. To explore the relationships between individual uses of ICT and changes to organization and industry structures, we examined the residential real estate industry. Real estate is a revelatory industry for the study of ICT uses because it is information-intensive and realtors are information intermediaries between buyers and sellers. As agents, buyers and sellers increase their uses of ICT, they also change how they approach their daily work. We use structuration theory to provide an analytic perspective within this setting.

In order to effectively respond to changing market conditions, business partners must be able to rapidly form supply chains. This thesis approaches the problem of automating supply chain formation—the process of determining the participants in a supply chain, who will exchange what with whom, and the terms of the exchanges—within an economic framework. In this thesis, supply chain formation is formalized as task dependency networks. This model captures subtask decomposition in the presence of resource contention—two important and challenging aspects of supply chain formation. In order to form supply chains in a decentralized fashion, price systems provide an economic framework for guiding the decisions of self-interested agents. In competitive price equilibrium, agents choose optimal allocations with respect to prices, and outcomes are optimal overall. Approximate competitive equilibria yield approximately optimal allocations. Different market protocols are proposed for agents to negotiate the allocation of resources to form supply chains. In the presence of resource contention, these protocols produce better solutions than the greedy protocols common in the artificial intelligence

Online reputation mechanisms are emerging as a promising alternative to more established mechanisms for promoting trust and cooperative behavior, such as legally enforceable contracts. As information technology

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: We thank the senior editor on the manuscript, V. Sambamurthy, and the anonymous associate editor and reviewers for their many insightful suggestions on earlier

The emerging work on understanding open source software has strongly argued for the importance of understanding what leads to effectiveness in OSS development, has frequently pointed to ideology and communication as probable factors in effectiveness, and has presented conflicting opinions about the role of trust in effectiveness. For all the discussion of these issues, there has been no comprehensive elaboration of what constitutes OSS ideology, and very little empirical data has been brought to bear on examining antecedents of OSS team effectiveness. This paper develops a framework of the OSS ideology (including specific norms, beliefs, and values) and a theoretical model to show how components of the ideology, combined with trust and communication, impact effectiveness in OSS teams. The research model proposes distinct roles for affective trust, cognitive trust, social communication, and task communication as determinants of OSS team effectiveness. Qualitative and quantitative data are analyzed to evaluate the model. The results suggest that in order for OSS projects to grow into the kind of large successes that prior work has studied, the teams that work on them should foster the norms and values of the larger community and maintain consistent task communication to develop cognitive trust among members. Keywords: Open Source Software, Trust, Ideology, Communication, Virtual Teams ISRL categories: DA01, DA06, DD02 EFFECTIVENESS IN OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT TEAMS While the practices associated with Open Source Software (OSS) development have been in use for decades, recent years have seen a surge of interest in OSS across developers, businesses, governments, and academic researchers. Since its inception, more than 67,000 projects have been registered on Sourcefo...

Knowledge management is becoming a fashion in many organizations. This entails the danger that large investments in knowledge externalization are made with little short-term repayment. Moreover, there is a risk that knowledge management administrations operate in parallel and with little connection to the business processes. We argue that the main purpose of business knowledge is improved action, and therefore we must interrelate processes of knowledge creation and usage with the normal business processes both on a conceptual and a system level. The paper presents a model-based approach for solving this integration problem, and describes an implementation architecture which links knowledges processes to a workflow environment. Experiences in an organization where our system was successfully installed indicate that such a "light-weight" integrated solution offers a relatively easy and immediately useful entry point into organizational knowledge management.

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