The atoms, molecules and fibers of organizations

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Abstract

The increasing demands concerning the modifiability and connectivity of business processes cannot be met adequately anymore by relying on best practices only. There is an urgent need for a reference conceptual framework for studying, modeling, analyzing and designing business processes. The Language–Action Perspective (LAP), in particular Habermas’ theory of Communicative Action offers a sound and rigid foundation for such a framework. In this paper, the DEMO (Demo Engineering Methodology for Organizations)-framework is presented. It builds on the LAP-based theoretical foundation of the DEMO methodology. Several other LAP-based frameworks have been proposed in the past years. They are evaluated in a comparative review with the DEMO-framework. Several shortcomings of these frameworks are revealed and discussed. The practical applicability of the DEMO-framework is demonstrated using a small example.

Introduction

The implementation of ICT-applications in organizations all over the world has not only lead to an improved performance of their business processes, but also to increased demands concerning the agility of organizations and the consequent modifiability of the business processes. In order to survive in the dynamic and global business context, it has become imperative that a company is able to easily adapt its product and service assortment to the changing market needs. Otherwise said, a company must be able to evolve smoothly. This is currently a major problem. An other major problem is that a company must be able to enter easily into temporary or permanent alliances with other companies. Examples of those alliances are material supply chains and health care networks.

Both problems can only be addressed adequately if business processes can be easily modified as well as easily connected to each other. These requirements however cannot be met in a cost-effective way if the analysts and designers of business processes continue to rely mainly on best practices instead of sound theoretical achievements. There is a common agreement that sound solutions are module- or component-based. There is an urgent need for a conceptual framework for studying, modeling, analyzing and designing business processes that has the potential of becoming a reference framework both for practical applications and for the development of knowledge. The Language–Action Perspective (LAP) [2], [8], [13], [15], [16], [19] offers an appropriate theoretical foundation for such a framework, because it brings to the front and clarifies the most elementary building blocks of business processes: the language acts or communicative acts.

The basis for the development of the proposed framework is the theory behind the DEMO1 methodology for modeling (re) designing and (re) engineering business processes [7], [9], [10], [18]. This theory is summarized in Section 2. Only those parts are mentioned that are relevant for the purpose of this paper. The developed framework is in particular based on [11], [12], [14]. In the subsequent 3 The atomic layer, 4 The molecular layer, 5 The fiber layer, we present and elaborate on three conceptual layers at which the business processes in an organization can be understood. These layers are truly distinct, i.e. the entities in each layer have emergent properties. Analogous to the three layers distinguished in physics (and microbiology), we will speak of atoms, molecules and fibers. The framework is called the DEMO-framework. In two previous papers presented at LAP workshops, Weigand et al. [23] and Lind & Goldkuhl [14] have proposed other LAP-based conceptual frameworks. In Section 6, the DEMO-framework is evaluated in a comparative review with these frameworks. Section 7 contains conclusions and suggestions for future research.

Section snippets

Communication

The common core in all definitions of the notion of organization that one can find in the literature is that an organization is a system of human beings with a particular purpose or mission. We take this common core as our starting point, but we make two accentuations. First, we take the purpose or mission of an organization for granted. Put differently, we adhere to a purely ontological point of view instead of a teleological one. Matters like purpose and mission do rightly and only belong to

The atomic layer

As was explained in Section 2, we make a distinction between coordination acts and production acts. Coordination acts are always, either directly or indirectly, about production acts or, more precisely, production facts. For example, one may request, promise, state and accept the production fact “the goods of customer order #1445 are shipped to the customer’s delivery address”. This is a material fact, which can only be brought about by a material act, viz. the transportation of physical items

The molecular layer

Coordination and production acts appear to occur in particular patterns, called interactions. Up to now only one kind of interaction is considered in DEMO, namely the transaction. A transaction is defined as a finite sequence of coordination acts between two actors, concerning the same production fact. The actor who starts the transaction is called the initiator. The general objective of the initiator of a transaction is to have something done by the other actor, who therefore is called the

The fiber layer

In Section 3, the atomic building blocks of organizations were identified and discussed: coordination acts and action rules (Note that, like the atoms in physics, these building blocks are composed of particles themselves). In Section 4, higher order entities were identified: transactions and actor roles. Because these entities are composed of atomic entities, they constitute a new layer of building blocks, called molecules. The justification of a new layer consists of the emergent properties

Comparative evaluation of the framework

In this section, we compare our framework with the frameworks proposed by Weigand et al. [23] and by Lind & Goldkuhl [15]. We will do so after a critical discussion of these frameworks. The two frameworks are exhibited in Fig. 9. The different orientations of the representations (bottom-to-top hierarchy for Weigand et al. and top-to-bottom hierarchy for Lind & Goldkuhl) are left intact.

Both Lind & Goldkuhl and Weigand et al. agree on the view that communicative acts or speech acts are atomic

Practical application of the framework

In this section, we will illustrate the modeling of organizations in DEMO, taking as the example case a pizzeria. The pizzeria is owned by the Owner who started once on his own but who now has two employees: his daughter and a boy. The process of fulfilling a customer order is as follows. The Owner takes an order from a customer. He then asks the daughter to bake the pizzas. After having baked the pizzas, the daughter hands them over to the boy and asks him to bring them to the customer. The

Conclusions

The purpose of the research reported upon in this paper is to contribute to the achievement of a common reference framework for studying, modeling, designing and implementing business processes. Our contribution to reaching this goal is summarized in the proposed alternative framework as exhibited in Fig. 10. Only the communicative acts that fall in Habermas’ category of regulativa are considered to play a role in business processes. These are the acts of which the dominant validity claim is

Acknowledgements

The author wants to express his gratitude towards the colleagues in the LAP community that have helped him to constitute this paper on the basis of the fruitful discussions during the LAP workshop in 2002, and by meticulously reviewing the draft version.

Prof. Dr. Jan L.G. Dietz is professor in Information Systems Engineering at Delft University of Technology since 1994. After obtaining his M.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering in 1970 at Eindhoven University of Technology, he worked as practitioner in the field of automation and information systems for 10 years. In 1987 he received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Eindhoven University of Technology. From 1988 to 1994 he was Professor of Management Information Systems at the University of

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    Prof. Dr. Jan L.G. Dietz is professor in Information Systems Engineering at Delft University of Technology since 1994. After obtaining his M.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering in 1970 at Eindhoven University of Technology, he worked as practitioner in the field of automation and information systems for 10 years. In 1987 he received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Eindhoven University of Technology. From 1988 to 1994 he was Professor of Management Information Systems at the University of Maastricht, where he started the development of the DEMO methodology. He is the Dutch national representative in IFIP TC8 and member of IFIP WG8.1. His currents interests are in the further development of DEMO and in Business ICT Architectures.

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