Action-oriented conceptual modelling
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Action-oriented conceptual modellingw Pa¨r J. A˚gerfalk1,2 and Owen Eriksson3 1 Methodology Exploration Laboratory, ¨ rebro Department of Informatics (ESI), O ¨ rebro, Sweden; 2Department of University, O Computer Science and Information Systems, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland; 3 Department of Computer Science and Informatics (IDI), Dalarna University, Borla¨nge, Sweden
Correspondence: Pa¨r J. A˚gerfalk, Department of Computer Science and Information Systems, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland. Tel: +353 61 213573 Fax: +353 61 202734 E-mail: [email protected] wAn earlier version of this paper was published as: A˚GERFALK PJ and ERIKSSON O (2002) Pragmatization of conceptual modelling. In Information Systems and the Future of the Digital Economy, Proceedings of the Xth European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS 2002), 6–8 June 2002, Gdansk, Poland, Vol 1, (Wrycza S, Ed.), pp 416–428.
Received: 6 November 2002 Revised: 29 July 2003 2nd Revision: 1 December 2003 Accepted: 4 December 2003
Abstract The aim of this paper is to show how speech act theory can be used in systems development as a theoretical foundation for conceptual modelling. With the traditional notion of the conceptual model as an image of reality, the predominant modelling problem is to analyse how the external reality should be mapped into, and represented in, the system in a ‘true’ way. In contrast to this, we maintain that the main modelling problem should be to analyse the communication acts performed by use of the system within its business context. This implies an integration of traditional conceptual modelling with action-oriented business modelling based on speech act theory. With such an approach, it is possible to reconcile traditional conceptual modelling and the pragmatic aspects of language and computer use. It is argued that such reconciliation is essential to arrive at systems that provide relevant information to users and in which users can trace responsibilities for information, actions and commitments made. European Journal of Information Systems (2004) 13, 80–92. doi:10.1057/ palgrave.ejis.3000486
Introduction Conceptual modelling, as a systems development activity, is basically concerned with two different views: a static and a dynamic view. The static view emphasizes static properties in terms of, for example, entities and relationships (Chen, 1976). The dynamic view captures how entities of the static model change state over time. Such state changes are often thought of as triggered by events occurring in the system’s environment (e.g. Booch et al., 1999). Although conceptual modelling is an important activity in the systems development process, there is confusion as to how it should actually be performed. There is, for example, no consensus on how to represent associations in the static model (such as weak entities, relationships and attributes) (Wand et al., 1999). There are also problems related to the modelling of dynamic and temporal aspects (Snoeck & Dedene, 1998; Gregersen & Jensen, 1999). A further
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