Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 April 2009
Let S, T1,… Tk be finite semigroups and Ψ: S → Ti, be embeddings. When C[S] is semisimple, we find necessary and sufficient conditions for the semigroup amalgam (T1,…, Tk; S) to be embeddable in a finite semigroup. As a consequence we show that if S is a finite semigroup with C[S] semisimple, then S is an amalgamation base for the class of finite semigroups if and only if the principal ideals of S are linearly ordered. Our proof uses both the theory of representations by transformations and the theory of matrix representations as developed by Clifford, Munn and Ponizovskii