There is a strong ongoing trend for traditional organisations to adapt to the socially networked nature of the human population. This trend allows organisations to be transformed from bricks and mortar to a more online form. In this special issue, we aim to understand the current range of nascent network-centric organisations. At one end of the spectrum, this includes human efforts to form collaborative units. On the other end of the spectrum, we seek to understand techniques and methodologies for constructing online agent organisations that represent the interests of their human counterparts and take actions autonomously.

The issue will reflect the impacts of social network proliferation and the beginnings of agent systems that exploit and explore opportunities heralded by social media and the ever-faster pace of interconnectivity. Agents must multitask. Beyond performing their design tasks, they must be aware of the social climate of their environment. They must account for interactions with other agents and humans so as to perform social acts in order to complement their physical and speech acts.

A substantial amount of research work is advancing distributed knowledge management. Therefore, this special issue will emphasise the operational elements of social networks that facilitate elements of online organisations. Social as well as cognitive foundations surrounding network organisations are of special interest and the focal theme. This theme includes social capital and the nature of interactions among individuals engaged in meaningful exchange.

The issue will carry revised and substantially extended versions of selected papers presented at the 2015 International Workshop on Collaborative Online Organizations. However, we also strongly encourage researchers unable to participate in the workshop to submit articles for this special issue.

This call is open to both research and industry contributions.


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)) Subject Coverage:
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Papers may address one or more of topics listed below, although authors should not feel limited by them. Unlisted but related topics are also acceptable, provided they fit in with one of the main topic areas.

- Agent-based networked environments
- Cooperation and collaboration mechanisms
- Collective benefits of political fallouts and economic externalities
- Computational models of organisations
- Digital communities and virtual organisations
- Distributed technologies for group networks
- Globalised networks and grid alliances
- Network-centric warfare
- Networked individualism
- Networked organisations
- Social capital and human-centric based group networks
- Social networks and community discovery
- Social computing and inter-cultural networks
- Theoretical aspects of distributed organisations


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)) Notes for Prospective Authors:
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Submitted papers should not have been previously published nor be currently under consideration for publication elsewhere. (N.B. Conference papers may only be submitted if the paper has been completely re-written and if appropriate written permissions have been obtained from any copyright holders of the original paper).

All papers are refereed through a peer review process.

All papers must be submitted online. To submit a paper, please read our Submitting articles page (http://www.inderscience.com/info/inauthors/author_submit.php).

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)) Contact:
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Please email the guest editor for more details and concerns.