Modeling organizations as a social network of distributed knowledge-based systems

An architecture is described that allows multiple, heterogeneous knowledge-base systems to cooperate in a partially structured social network. The design is conceived from social epistemological theory which studies the social influence; on beliefs and evaluates social practices based on a truth-linked criterion. A planning theory of intention is reviewed as a mechanism for coordinating actions between agents. A design technique is proposed whereby information technology is applied to augment actual human processes that are deficient relative to the normative theory. A distributed knowledge-base management system architecture is described that models the practices and group methods of a social community. The individual knowledge-base systems model the processes and methods used by individual agents. Research issues are outlined for extending this architecture