See also the Scoool of Computing's Semiotics Special Interest Group . 1st International Workshop on Computational Semiotics , Paris. Abstract Information systems are organisations in which signs are created, processed and consumed for social and economic purposes. In order to fulfil the organisational goals and objectives, members within an organisation must understand their responsibilities and authorities, and must act cooperatively. The key to this organisation and coordination lies in norms which define responsibilities and authorities for each human agent, and establish regularities of behaviour.
Software agents can perform some tasks autonomously on the user s behalf.
Such delegation involves a set of complicated philosophical and legal issues. Following discussion on delineation of various boundaries of responsibility and authorities, this paper addresses norms and normative behaviour of human agents within an organisation. Taxonomies of norms are discussed. A method of norm specification using deontic operators is described, supported by a series of examples of banking and email.