Organizational Replication Using Inheritance

Electronic organizations are not operating in an isolated manner. Instead, they form an ecosystem defined by various relationships. We will look at organizations that can share norms and/or a hierarchical bond. Determining what is the set of norms that should be shared and acknowledged among organizations that implement identical concepts, as well as how responsibility is delegated between an organization and sub-organizations, represent issues that require a thorough investigation. This paper presents a taxonomy for the possible relationships that may bind two organizations and defines how the normative specifications are inherited from the abstract concepts of organizations to the actual entities instantiating these concepts.