A resource management method (400c) and a corresponding system implementing an adaptive model are proposed. The method allows an authority to define a desired target state of several kinds of resources, which are directly controlled by different subjects. The authority publishes (460) a series of rules in a shared repository; each rule indicates the target state of a resource for a corresponding category of the subjects. Each subject retrieves (444-456;462-468) the rules corresponding to its category from the shared repository. The rules are then applied (458;469) by the subject directly. In this way, the subjects self-adapt to the rules, without requiring any direct interaction with the authority.