CONCEPT
Nested Enterprises
Ostrom's eighth design principle — for resources that are part of larger systems, governance must be organized in multiple layers, each addressing challenges appropriate to its scale, connected through institutional linkages that enable coordination without hierarchical subordination.
The eighth design principle addresses a challenge that becomes acute when the resource system operates at multiple scales simultaneously. A local fishery is part of a regional marine ecosystem, which is part of a national maritime jurisdiction, which is part of the global ocean. Governance effective at one scale may be ineffective or counterproductive at another. Ostrom's solution is nested enterprises — governance organized in multiple layers, each maintaining its own authority and decision-making processes, connected by institutional linkages that enable communication, coordination, and mutual adjustment.
In The You On AI Field Guide
The concept is not hierarchy in the traditional sense. It is not a chain of command in which lower levels take orders from higher levels. It is a system in which each level maintains its own authority, rules, and decision-making processes, and the relationships between levels are characterized by coordination rather than subordination.
The intelligence commons operates at multiple scales simultaneously. At the individual level