A Game Theory Based Approach for Building Holonic Virtual Enterprises

Holon and holarchy are widely spread concepts in many domains and are used, among others, for building holonic virtual enterprises. However, the methods applied to create such holonic virtual enterprises are nowadays scarcely specified or they have limited applicability. In order to find detailed methods, the proposal is to give up the holonic paradigm and study the traditional partner selection proposals in virtual enterprises, trying their extrapolation to the holonic paradigm. These proposals are based on groups of key factors, but generally it is neither agreed on such factors nor on the way of performing the selection of member enterprises depending on these key factors. The suggestion on this matter is a well-defined game theory based method with a clear advantage: it is a procedural method which accepts any set of key factors; that is to say, it has a formal basis and it is not limited to a given set of key factors. Moreover, the proposed method is specifically oriented to the partners' selection in holonic virtual enterprises, providing a ranked list of the best potential holonic virtual enterprises instead of a unique holonic virtual enterprise. Finally, a case study is presented in order to illustrate the applicability of the proposal.