This paper presents an electronic commerce framework for resource allocation in multi-enterprise environments. Within each enterprise the resources are allocated by a multi-agent system in order to increase the allocation process efficiency, reactivity, fault tolerance, and extensibility. We propose a multi-agent enterprise architecture based on a dynamic organizational structure, which allows the enterprise to appear in external environment as a single and coherent negotiation agent. An automated negotiation mechanism based on marginal cost calculations is presented, and the problem of determining the partners for a negotiation process is specially addressed and formalized.
Multi-Agent Systems, Resource Allocation, Electronic Commerce
and Dynamic Organizational Structures.