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Ontological Analysis of Advanced Capability Modeling in ArchiMate: A First Step Towards Language Revision

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Enterprise Design, Operations, and Computing. EDOC 2024 Workshops (EDOC 2024)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing ((LNBIP,volume 537))

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Abstract

In order to support capability management, the field of Enterprise Architecture proposes methods and notations to model enterprises and their capabilities. ArchiMate is one of such notations and includes constructs to support capability mapping and other capability management tasks. However, the notation lacks some fine-grained distinctions that are required to understand intricate phenomena involving capabilities, including capability interaction and the emergence of capabilities. In this work, we perform an ontological analysis of the language’s support for capability modeling based on a well-founded ontology of capabilities aligned with the Unified Foundational Ontology (UFO). Through this ontological analysis, we identify some issues outlining possible improvements for ArchiMate. This is a first step towards language redesign, which may include the proposal of language patterns and/or the revision of language constructs.

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Acknowledgments

This study was financed in part by the Brazilian funding agencies CNPq (443130/2023-0, 313412/2023-5) and FAPES (2021-GL60J, 2022-NGKM5, 1022/2022).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ontology & Conceptual Modeling Research Group, Federal University of Espírito Santo, Vitoria, Brazil

    Rodrigo Fernandes Calhau & João Paulo A. Almeida

  2. LEDS, Federal Institute of Espírito Santo, Serra, Brazil

    Rodrigo Fernandes Calhau

  3. Semantics, Cybersecurity & Services, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands

    Rodrigo Fernandes Calhau & Giancarlo Guizzardi

Authors
  1. Rodrigo Fernandes Calhau
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  2. João Paulo A. Almeida
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  3. Giancarlo Guizzardi
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Giancarlo Guizzardi .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany

    Monika Kaczmarek-Heß

  2. Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences, Mönchengladbach, Germany

    Kristina Rosenthal

  3. Czech Technical University in Prague, Prague, Czech Republic

    Marek Suchánek

  4. Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal

    Miguel Mira Da Silva

  5. TU Wien, Vienna, Austria

    Henderik A. Proper

  6. TU Wien, Vienna, Austria

    Marianne Schnellmann

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Calhau, R.F., Almeida, J.P.A., Guizzardi, G. (2025). Ontological Analysis of Advanced Capability Modeling in ArchiMate: A First Step Towards Language Revision. In: Kaczmarek-Heß, M., Rosenthal, K., Suchánek, M., Da Silva, M.M., Proper, H.A., Schnellmann, M. (eds) Enterprise Design, Operations, and Computing. EDOC 2024 Workshops . EDOC 2024. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 537. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-79059-1_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-79059-1_6

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