A Foundational Ontology of Organizations and Roles

In this paper we propose a foundational ontology of the social con-
cepts of organization and role which structure institutions. We identify which
axioms model social concepts like organization and role and which properties
distinguish them from other categories like objects and agents: the organizational
structure of institutions, the relation between roles and organizations, and the
powers among the components of an organization. All social concepts depend on
descriptions defining them, which are collectively accepted, and the description
defining the components of organizations, including roles, are included in the
description of the organizations they belong to. Thus, the relational dependence
of roles means that they are defined in the organizations they belong to. Finally,
powers inside organizations are defined by the fact that components of an orga-
nization can access the state of the organization whose definition they depend on
and of the other components, thus violating the standard encapsulation principle
of objects