Abstract
We present a game-theoretic approach to analyzing the incentive structure in formal models of inter-organizational businesses processes. In such processes, the choices of each participants influence the outcome of others. A potential participant may be torn between the prospect of a highly preferable outcome on the one hand (e.g., a bonus on timely delivery), and the possibility that another player may make a choice (e.g., reallocation of the fast trucks) which renders that outcome impossible to achieve. We propose (a) an analysis which given the preferences of participants determines if the collaboration is at all meaningful; (b) an algorithm for modifying the incentive structure of such a process using both fines and outcome re-distribution to increase the benefit for all participants; and (c) a practical way of computing this algorithm while concealing the preferences of the collaborators for each other using secure multi-party computation.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
From a practical perspective, if a node can never be reached based on a previous choice it need not an assignment.
- 2.
Technically the players are only required to have k-level knowledge of the game, where k is the depth of the game tree.
- 3.
Online at https://github.com/Frehaa/mpc-games.
References
Damgård, I., Pastro, V., Smart, N., Zakarias, S.: Multiparty computation from somewhat homomorphic encryption. In: Safavi-Naini, R., Canetti, R. (eds.) CRYPTO 2012. LNCS, vol. 7417, pp. 643–662. Springer, Heidelberg (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32009-5_38
Debois, S., Hildebrandt, T.T., Slaats, T.: Replication, refinement & reachability: complexity in DCR graphs. Acta Informatica 55(6), 489–520 (2018)
Di Ciccio, C., et al.: Blockchain support for collaborative business processes. Informatik Spektrum 42(3), 182–190 (2019)
Evans, D., Kolesnikov, V., Rosulek, M.: A pragmatic introduction to secure multi-party computation. Found. Trends Privacy Secur. 2(2–3), 70–246 (2018)
Fudenberg, D., Tirole, J.: Game Theory. MIT Press, Cambridge (1991)
García-Bañuelos, L., Ponomarev, A., Dumas, M., Weber, I.: Optimized execution of business processes on blockchain. In: BPM 2017, pp. 130–146 (2017)
Guanciale, R., Gurov, D., Laud, P.: Business process engineering and secure multiparty computation. Cryptol. Inf. Sec. Ser. 13, 129–149 (2015)
Heindel, T., Weber, I.: Incentive alignment of business processes. In: Fahland, D., Ghidini, C., Becker, J., Dumas, M. (eds.) BPM 2020. LNCS, vol. 12168, pp. 93–110. Springer, Cham (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58666-9_6
Hildebrandt, T., Mukkamala, R.R., Slaats, T.: Declarative modelling and safe distribution of healthcare workflows. In: Liu, Z., Wassyng, A. (eds.) FHIES 2011. LNCS, vol. 7151, pp. 39–56. Springer, Heidelberg (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32355-3_3
Keller, M.: MP-SPDZ: a versatile framework for multi-party computation. In: Proceedings of the 2020 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security (2020)
Keller, M., Orsini, E., Scholl, P.: MASCOT: faster malicious arithmetic secure computation with oblivious transfer. In: Proceedings of the 2016 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security, CCS 2016, pp. 830–842. ACM, October 2016
Madsen, M.F., Gaub, M., Kirkbro, M.E., Høgnason, T., Slaats, T., Debois, S.: Collaboration among adversaries: distributed workflow execution on a blockchain. In: Symposium on Foundations and Applications of Blockchain (FAB 2018) (2018)
Mendling, J., Weber, I., Aalst, W.V.D., Brocke, J.V., et al.: Blockchains for business process management - challenges and opportunities. ACM Trans. Manag. Inf. Syst. 9(1), 4:1–4:16 (2018)
Nisan, N., Roughgarden, T., Tardos, E., Vazirani, V.V.: Algorithmic Game Theory. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2007)
Object Management Group BPMN Technical Committee: Business Process Model and Notation, Version 2.0 (2013)
Pesic, M., Schonenberg, H., Van der Aalst, W.M.: Declare: full support for loosely-structured processes. In: 11th IEEE International Enterprise Distributed Object Computing Conference (EDOC 2007), pp. 287–287. IEEE (2007)
Poizat, P., Salaün, G.: Checking the realizability of BPMN 2.0 choreographies. In: Proceedings of the 27th ACM Symposium on Applied Computing, pp. 1927–1934 (2012)
Rosemann, M.: Trust-aware process design. In: Hildebrandt, T., van Dongen, B.F., Röglinger, M., Mendling, J. (eds.) BPM 2019. LNCS, vol. 11675, pp. 305–321. Springer, Cham (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26619-6_20
Tiezzi, F., Re, B., Polini, A., Morichetta, A., Corradini, F.: Collaboration vs. choreography conformance in BPMN. Log. Methods Comput. Sci. 16 (2020)
Acknowledgements
We gratefully acknowledge helpful discussions related to MPC with Bernardo David, as well as useful feedback from reviewers. This work is supported by Independent Research Fund Denmark, grant 0136-00144B, “DISTRUST” project.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Haagensen, F., Debois, S. (2022). Incentive Alignment Through Secure Computations. In: Di Ciccio, C., Dijkman, R., del Río Ortega, A., Rinderle-Ma, S. (eds) Business Process Management. BPM 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13420. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-16103-2_23
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-16103-2_23
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-16102-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-16103-2
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)