Affiliations: Department of Computer and Information Technology, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA | Department of Computer Science, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA | Department of Computing and Information Sciences, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas, USA
Abstract: It has been said that the only constant in life is change. This rule can also be directly applied to the lives of organizations. Any organization of non-trivial size, scope, life expectancy or function, is destined to change. An organization without the ability to transition is not robust, evolvable or adaptable within its environment. These basic preconditions to human organizations must also hold in viable agent organizations. To model an adaptable agent organization, the capability must be present to transition from one state to the next over the life of the organization. The organization model must include not only the structural objects, but also the ability to facilitate change. The ability to change empowers the organization to transition from one state to the next, over its useful life. To enable transition, we must formally capture and define what triggers an organization transition. In this paper, we will define the properties to formally model the ability of an adaptable organization to transition throughout its useful life. The properties will be instantiated, using an implemented system, allowing the evaluation of internal and external stimuli to cause transition to the organization. These transitions will be evaluated from several perspectives to determine their effectivity on basis of design and use.