Inter-organizational Relationship
Describe attributed, time-qualified organizational relationships without confusing affiliation, supply, consolidation and ownership.
Bundle → Layer → Finding → Questions Filled
6 bundles · 12 layers · 12 findings · 36 questions
Relationship identity and endpoint semantics Inter-organizational relationship identity and endpoint semantics.
Source-qualified relationship identity
Qualified relationship assertion for source-qualified relationship identity. Retain source scope and do not infer legal or commercial authority from its mere existence.
Source-qualified relationship identity record
Qualified relationship assertion for source-qualified relationship identity. Retain source scope and do not infer legal or commercial authority from its mere existence.
- Which master namespace and identifier distinguish this relationship from another relationship between the same organizations? identity
- Which versioned kind definition makes it partnership, affiliation, supply, control or another relation, and which near-neighbour kinds are excluded? classification
- Which scope qualifier distinguishes parallel relationships by service, geography, business unit or agreement without overwriting one another? constraint
Participants, direction and multiplicity
Qualified relationship assertion for participants, direction and multiplicity. Retain source scope and do not infer legal or commercial authority from its mere existence.
Participants, direction and multiplicity record
Qualified relationship assertion for participants, direction and multiplicity. Retain source scope and do not infer legal or commercial authority from its mere existence.
- Which organization references occupy each endpoint role and which identity resolution remains unknown or disputed? relationship
- Is the relation directional, reciprocal or symmetric under its kind, and what inverse label preserves rather than changes its meaning? relationship
- Is this a bilateral relation or a multi-party arrangement, and what is lost if its membership is exported as pairwise edges? composition
Relationship basis and domain extent Inter-organizational relationship basis and domain extent.
Basis, recognition and authority
Qualified relationship assertion for basis, recognition and authority. Retain source scope and do not infer legal or commercial authority from its mere existence.
Basis, recognition and authority record
Qualified relationship assertion for basis, recognition and authority. Retain source scope and do not infer legal or commercial authority from its mere existence.
- What evidence establishes the claimed relation rather than merely common branding, a shared address or an unverified marketing statement? evidence
- Who asserts or recognizes it, in which capacity, and does the other party confirm, contest or have no recorded position? authority
- Which governing instrument and jurisdiction qualify the assertion without transferring contract ownership or legal adjudication to this record? requirement
Control and ownership interpretation
Qualified relationship assertion for control and ownership interpretation. Retain source scope and do not infer legal or commercial authority from its mere existence.
Control and ownership interpretation record
Qualified relationship assertion for control and ownership interpretation. Retain source scope and do not infer legal or commercial authority from its mere existence.
- Does the relation concern accounting consolidation, equity, votes, other control or beneficial interest, and which definition applies? classification
- What share, range, denominator, class, date and uncertainty qualify a quantitative interest instead of an unqualified percentage? measurement
- Is direct or indirect control explicitly evidenced, which intermediate records support it, and which inference rules are prohibited? relationship
Collaboration and exchange boundaries Inter-organizational collaboration and exchange boundaries.
Partnership purpose and responsibilities
Qualified relationship assertion for partnership purpose and responsibilities. Retain source scope and do not infer legal or commercial authority from its mere existence.
Partnership purpose and responsibilities record
Qualified relationship assertion for partnership purpose and responsibilities. Retain source scope and do not infer legal or commercial authority from its mere existence.
- What jointly stated purpose and activity scope belong to this collaboration? definition
- Which responsibilities are attributed to each party and where are their governing mandates mastered? authority
- What limits distinguish the collaboration from a newly formed legal entity or permission for an agent to bind either party? constraint
Supply and service linkage
Qualified relationship assertion for supply and service linkage. Retain source scope and do not infer legal or commercial authority from its mere existence.
Supply and service linkage record
Qualified relationship assertion for supply and service linkage. Retain source scope and do not infer legal or commercial authority from its mere existence.
- Which party supplies and which receives what defined service or product scope, without importing orders, delivery events or payments here? relationship
- Is the linkage prospective, awarded, observed or terminated, and what process-qualified evidence establishes that state? state
- Which customer/account or supplier-qualification models master the detailed commercial lifecycle and which fields must not be duplicated here? ownership
Time, lifecycle and graph interpretation Inter-organizational time, lifecycle and graph interpretation.
Effective interval and record history
Qualified relationship assertion for effective interval and record history. Retain source scope and do not infer legal or commercial authority from its mere existence.
Effective interval and record history record
Qualified relationship assertion for effective interval and record history. Retain source scope and do not infer legal or commercial authority from its mere existence.
- When did the relationship take effect and cease, at what precision, and are interval endpoints known, estimated or open? temporal
- When was the assertion observed, recorded and published, distinct from its effective interval, and which revision supersedes it? provenance
- Does closure mean real-world termination, publisher record retirement or correction of erroneous data, and how is that distinction retained? lifecycle
Graph derivation and structural constraints
Qualified relationship assertion for graph derivation and structural constraints. Retain source scope and do not infer legal or commercial authority from its mere existence.
Graph derivation and structural constraints record
Qualified relationship assertion for graph derivation and structural constraints. Retain source scope and do not infer legal or commercial authority from its mere existence.
- Which kind-specific constraints permit or forbid self-links, cycles and multiple parents without imposing one universal organization tree? constraint
- Which direct records, time slice and rule generated an indirect relation, and can the derived edge be reproduced separately from asserted data? provenance
- What ambiguity or information loss arises from merging conflicting, incomplete or differently scoped relationship graphs? quality
Evidence, dispute and stewardship Inter-organizational evidence, dispute and stewardship.
Evidence quality and counterclaims
Qualified relationship assertion for evidence quality and counterclaims. Retain source scope and do not infer legal or commercial authority from its mere existence.
Evidence quality and counterclaims record
Qualified relationship assertion for evidence quality and counterclaims. Retain source scope and do not infer legal or commercial authority from its mere existence.
- Which attributable source, exact record and retrieval context support each relationship assertion, and what validation has actually occurred? evidence
- Which contradictory assertions coexist and who may resolve their conflict under the Dimension policy rather than overwrite inconvenient evidence? decision
- Does missing data mean unknown, withheld, not reported, expired or explicit non-existence within a defined search scope? exception
Mastership, freshness and permitted disclosure
Qualified relationship assertion for mastership, freshness and permitted disclosure. Retain source scope and do not infer legal or commercial authority from its mere existence.
Mastership, freshness and permitted disclosure record
Qualified relationship assertion for mastership, freshness and permitted disclosure. Retain source scope and do not infer legal or commercial authority from its mere existence.
- Which system and role master this relationship record and when is review due? ownership
- Which fields or endpoints are confidential, redacted or publicly reusable under a stated access policy and source license? access
- How does a redacted projection preserve the distinction between withheld and absent information while retaining an authorized evidence trail? privacy
Exchange and operational acceptance Inter-organizational exchange and operational acceptance.
Versioned external mappings
Qualified relationship assertion for versioned external mappings. Retain source scope and do not infer legal or commercial authority from its mere existence.
Versioned external mappings record
Qualified relationship assertion for versioned external mappings. Retain source scope and do not infer legal or commercial authority from its mere existence.
- Which exact relationship kinds map to ORG, GLEIF RR-CDF, BODS or OCDS, and which merely have broader or narrower correspondence? interoperability
- What qualifiers, time precision, multi-party structure or assertion status would be lost in each export? interoperability
- Which pinned schema/profile and round-trip fixtures demonstrate accepted mappings rather than an unsupported conformance claim? validation
Safe relationship maintenance operations
Qualified relationship assertion for safe relationship maintenance operations. Retain source scope and do not infer legal or commercial authority from its mere existence.
Safe relationship maintenance operations record
Qualified relationship assertion for safe relationship maintenance operations. Retain source scope and do not infer legal or commercial authority from its mere existence.
- Which policy permits an agent to record, revise, dispute or retire the local assertion without creating or ending the real-world relationship? authority
- Which expected revision and graph checks must pass before an append, and what conflict response preserves concurrent evidence? validation
- What post-write checks and compensating revision restore correctness without deleting provenance or silently widening disclosure? process
Classifiers Filled
- Family
- World Models
- Category
- Society, people and institutions
- Entry kind
- relationship
- Navigation path
- NAV.SOC.ORG.REL
- Domain
- SOC.ORG.REL
- Industry
- Cross-industry
- Tags
- interorganizationalrelationshipsoc.org.rel
What it is Filled
A source-qualified relationship aggregate with explicit participants, kind, direction, scope and evidence. Real-world relation state, publisher record state and observer claims remain separate. Multi-party arrangements require retained membership context.
In scope
- Relationship identity, endpoint roles and qualified kind
- Control-basis references, collaboration and exchange scope
- Temporal assertions, graph constraints, disputes and permitted mappings
Out of scope
- Organization identity, contract execution and ownership-register mastership
- Customer/account and supplier-qualification lifecycles
- Inferring legal authority, beneficial ownership or universal transitivity from a generic link
Why it exists Filled
Describe attributed, time-qualified organizational relationships without confusing affiliation, supply, consolidation and ownership.
Distinguishing features Filled
- A typed, directed link between organizations, not either organization's identity.
- Keeps affiliation, supply, consolidation and ownership as different kinds that cannot be read as one another.
- Distinguishes the real-world relation, the publisher's record and an observer's claim.
- Differs from a contract: a relationship may rest on a contract but is not its execution.
What robots and AI may and may not do Filled
Must not
- Infer control, beneficial ownership or legal authority from a generic link.
- Assume transitivity across relationship kinds.
- Treat an unreported relationship as proof that none exists.
- Merge parallel relationships between the same parties into one.
- Use a relationship record to authorize a transaction or signature.
Only with a human decision
- Resolving disputed relationship assertions.
- Publishing ownership or control conclusions about organizations.
May
- Resolve a relationship and its participants for a stated time.
- Traverse asserted links and clearly label any derived ones.
- Record an attributed assertion or counterclaim with its source.
- Export a permitted projection of the relationship graph.
Moral aspects Filled
- Ownership chains can reveal natural persons behind organizations, which raises privacy and safety issues.
- False affiliation links can damage reputations or trigger sanctions screening errors.
- Transparency of ownership serves anti-corruption goals and should not be lost in projections.
Who is affected
- Organizations named in the relationship
- Beneficial owners and officers behind them
- Regulators, investors and journalists who rely on the graph
Owners Filled
Steward
Declare the relationship-data owner and steward.
Roles
- Dimension owner
- Sets federation and delegation boundaries.
- Relationship steward
- Owns kind, endpoint and scope interpretation.
- Assertion contributor
- Adds attributable claims within authorized scope.
- Reviewer
- Assesses conflicting evidence and proposed graph mappings.
- Custodian
- Maintains access-filtered projections and retention.
Links to other meta-models Filled
references
- WM-ORG-001 - Proposed endpoint-identity reference, not a frozen approved ledger edge.
- WM-ORG-014 - Proposed customer/account lifecycle delegation where relevant.
- WM-ORG-015 - Proposed supplier qualification delegation where relevant.
aligned
- https://www.w3.org/TR/vocab-org/ - Candidate generic links; relationship kind semantics require a profile.
- https://standard.openownership.org/en/latest/standard/reference.html - Candidate organization-interest subset only, with explicit endpoint and component loss.
neighbor
- WM-ORG-001 Organization - Reference organization identities; a relationship is not either organization.
- WM-ORG-014 and WM-ORG-015 - Customer/account and supplier/partner qualification remain separate lifecycle masters; relationships provide scoped links.
- Ownership and accounting consolidation - Qualified relation kinds are not universally equivalent; person beneficial owners are out of endpoint scope.
- Activity and contract - PROV Association qualifies activity-agent provenance, not inter-organizational partnership; contract execution stays delegated.
parent
- WM-ORG-001
What else AI and robots need to interact with it Filled
Identity and identifiers required Filled
- Authoritative relationship master identifier
- Governed issuer-qualified URI
- Dimension-generated UUID with namespace
Direct properties not applicable Not applicable
Not applicable
Institutional or informational subject: no invented physical properties.
Recognition optional Filled
- A relationship has two or more participant references, a kind, a direction, a validity period and a source.
- Confused with the organizations themselves, a contract, a transaction and a consolidated group.
Capabilities and actions required Filled
- Resolve qualified relationship: Compare identities and scopes without merging parallel relations.
- Inspect qualified graph: Traverse asserted or explicitly derived relationships at a declared time.
- Record attributed assertion: Append evidence-backed claim without creating a real-world agreement.
- Append lifecycle revision: Separate effective termination, correction and record retirement.
- Register counterclaim: Preserve incompatible positions for authorized review.
- Export permitted projection: Apply versioned vocabulary mapping with declared losses.
Hazards and failure modes required Filled
- False sanctions or compliance hits from wrong ownership links.
- Hidden control when withheld links are treated as absent.
- Graph loops and inflated influence from derived links.
Standards and interfaces required Filled
- GLEIF Level 2 relationship records with LEI, ISO 17442.
- Beneficial Ownership Data Standard from Open Ownership.
- W3C Organization Ontology.
- IFRS 10 consolidation concepts.
Context of use required Filled
- Generic relationship is not a universal legal category. Accounting consolidation and beneficial ownership must retain their source definitions and jurisdictions.
Sources Filled
- The Organization Ontology - W3C
- Relationship Record CDF documentation - GLEIF
- Level 2 Data: Who Owns Whom - GLEIF
- Beneficial Ownership Data Standard schema reference - Open Ownership
- Open Contracting Data Standard release reference - Open Contracting Partnership
- PROV-O: The PROV Ontology - W3C
- Date and Time on the Internet: Timestamps - IETF
Open questions
- Independent external review and precise source/version/license pins.
- Executable loss-aware mapping and graph fixtures.
- Jurisdiction-specific relationship-kind profiles and approved typed composition.
- Claude and Grok each timed out on the sole bounded attempt; Codex-only reviewable-draft, no independent corroboration.
- Selected clauses only; exact dated source pins, source licenses and complete normative applicability remain to be verified.
- Full RR-CDF XSD fields, BODS/OCDS constraints and real round-trip fixtures have not been validated.
- No executable nested answer schema, identity resolver, graph rule engine or commercial operation is delivered.
- Jurisdiction-specific partnership, control, reporting-exception and disclosure law remain adopter-owned profile work.
- Multi-party and cyclic graph fixtures, relation-ledger approval and independent review remain open.
Machine files
Provenance
world-models research · reviewable-draft
Built from: models/wm-org-012-inter-organizational-relationship/spec.yaml, ver-cy/world-models/card-supplements/wm-org-012-inter-organizational-relationship.json