Modelling interaction and co-ordination as business ... - CiteSeerX

Modelling interaction and co-ordination as business communication in a mail-order setting Mikael Lind, Anders Hjalmarsson and Jan Olausson University College of Borås, Borås, Sweden {Mikael.Lind, Anders.Hjalmarsson, Jan.Olausson}@hb.se

Abstract When information systems are specified, developed and evaluated such systems need to be understood contextually. Such understanding can be achieved through business modelling. Business modelling can be used for the purpose of both reconstruction and redesign. During business modelling different perspectives can be used for guiding the modeller towards essential aspects. During process modelling two dominating perspectives can be identified; the transformative and the communicative view. The first one uses the material act as the basic unit of analysis and the latter one uses the speech-act as the basic unit of analysis. Depending on the underlying perspective business process models focus on the flow of activities or the action logic. Business process models do however lack in directing attendance towards interaction and co-ordination. There is a need for complementary business models. In this paper the co-operation diagram is put forward as such complementary business model. Co-operation diagrams are used for modelling interaction and co-ordination using social action, considering both material and communicative acts, as the basic unit of

The copyright of this paper belongs to the paper’s authors. Permission to copy without fee all or part of this material is granted provided that the copies are not made or distributed for direct commercial advantage. Proceedings of the 8th International Working Conference on the Language-Action Perspective on Communication Modelling (LAP 2003) Tilburg, The Netherlands, July 1-2, 2003 (H.Weigand, G. Goldkuhl, A. de Moor, eds.) http://www.uvt.nl/lap2003

161

M. Lind, A. Hjalmarsson, J. Olausson

analysis. By using co-operation diagrams aspects such as horizontal, vertical, internal and external co-ordination can be focused as well as the interaction between the organisation and external actors. The use of co-operation diagrams will be illustrated from a case study performed at a mail-order firm.

1

Introduction

Information systems need to be understood contextually (e.g. Denning & Dargan 1996; Winograd & Flores 1986), i.e. in the role they play in giving support to their business context. To reach such understanding there is a need to create business models. The activity of creating business models is called business modelling. Business modelling is often used both to reconstruct current business processes and redesigning new ones (Lind & Goldkuhl, 1997). A business model is simplified description of the actions performed for fulfilling customer needs and important characteristics for performing such actions (e.g. actor relationships, information flow etc). Each business model focuses a certain “view” of the business. A business process model is a special case of a business model. In this paper business process models are regarded as descriptions of dependencies between actions, interaction and co-ordination performed to establish and fulfil actor relationships in order to perform business. In contemporary organisational change approaches such as Business Process Reengineering (BPR) and Total Quality Management (TQM) the process notion is put into focus. Several different methods for process modelling exist. The different methods are however based on different conceptual frameworks and thus different process notions. Two views can be identified – the transformative and the communicative view (Keen, 1997; Lind, 2002). The transformative view can be regarded as a “manufacturing” view concerned with describing the transformation of input into output. This is of course important to describe, but in many situations it is apparently not sufficient, especially when information systems are developed. This narrow view is challenged in language/action (L/A) approaches for business modelling; c.f. e.g. Action Workflow (Medina-Mora et al, 1992) and DEMO (Dietz, 1999). This view is based on the idea that communication is not just transfer of information. When you communicate you also act. By using a communicative view on processes the organisations’ establishment and fulfilment of commitments are emphasised. Organisational work is co-ordinated through communication (Ahrne, 1994; Taylor, 1993). This implies that one can disregard neither communicative acts nor material acts when co-ordination is to be understood in an organisational context. Communicative acts get their meaning, among other things, from material acts, and material acts cannot be performed without co-ordination. We therefore need a perspective that takes both views into consideration when modelling businesses.

162

The Language-Action Perspective on Communication Modelling 2003

Modelling interaction and co-ordination as business communication

The assumption is that broader perspective on business modelling, co-ordination and interaction results in a richer and more valuable description of the organisational work in focus. Two types of co-ordination can be found in the literature – horizontal and vertical co-ordination (Weigand & De Moor, 2001). Lind & Goldkuhl (2002) have made a communicative analysis of the notion of co-ordination. This communicative analysis emphasises the need to distinguish between different kinds of assignments as well as between organisational levels. As a result the customer order is regarded as an external product assignment that is forwarded to different agents (actors) in the organisation (externally furnished product assignment). For horizontal co-ordination it is thus important to understand both the interaction between organisations and how the external product assignments are realised through material and communicative acts inside organisations. The research questions addressed in this paper are: • How should co-ordination and interaction be modelled as complementary to traditional business process modelling? • What should be focused during reconstruction based on this broaden perspective? The empirical basis for this paper is a business modelling project performed in a mail-order setting. The purpose of this paper is to show how interaction and coordination can be modelled as complementary to traditional business process models. By traditional we mean both business process models based on the transformative view as well as business process models based on a strict L/Aperspective (communicative view). We will exclusively focus on the use of cooperation diagrams (c.f. Röstlinger et al, 1997) as the business process model for illustrating co-ordination and interaction and thereby delimit ourselves from putting forward models describing business processes. Co-operation diagrams should however be seen as complementary business models to business process models. In the next section we will discuss the issue of modelling organisational work. In this section we will discuss speech act modelling approaches to business modelling. Social action as a unit of analysis will be proposed for taking both communicative and transformative aspects into consideration during business modelling. We will also go deeper into the notion of co-ordination. In section three the case performed at the mail-order firm will be introduced. Section four consists of an analysis in which the interaction and co-ordination identified at the mailorder firm will be discussed.


163


2 2.1

Modelling organisational work as speech acts and material acts Reconstruction

The concept of reconstruction is often used to emphasise that something is recreated. Something existing, but not exactly known, is made explicit through articulation and description. In a business, people act and communicate. There are certain patterns of action. Such action patterns and rules are social constructs. Reconstruction means here reconstruction of such social constructs. The reconstruction of a business aims at arriving at a shared understanding of how such is being performed. This includes making explicit different conceptions, action patterns, rules and business language (Habermas, 1979; Goldkuhl & Lyytinen, 1984). Tacit knowledge (Polanyi, 1966) need to be articulated. A good reconstruction process will establish a number of important results (Goldkuhl & Lyytinen, 1984): • Parts of the business language (vocabulary), different conceptions, and action rules and patterns are made explicit. • Unclear meanings are elicited and clarified among participants. • Participants agree upon different meanings. • Shared understanding of current business processes among participants is established. • A basis for evaluation and critique of current praxis is created. • Quality assurance concerning future changes. 2.2

Speech act modelling approaches

An action view on language and communication is emphasised when businesses are being analysed from a language action perspective (L/A). L/A focuses on what people do when they communicate. An important theoretical foundation for the language/action community is the Speech Act Theory (Austin, 1962; Searle, 1969; Habermas, 1984). The main characteristic of the Speech Act Theory is that it considers the use of language to be a form of rule-governed behaviour. Uttering a sentence is the performance of a purposeful act, a so-called speech act. L/A emphasises the need for regarding the performance of business in patterns constituted by inter-related speech acts. The Speech Act Theory has been the foundation for a number of theories and modelling approaches in the area of information systems (Reijswoud & Lind, 1998). Such approaches (as well as the theoretical orientation) consider the utterance of speech acts to be the backbone of business processes and consequently their modelling effort focuses on speech acts. The speech acts more or less make up the essentials of businesses according to these approaches.

164



The initial impetus to a speech-act based conceptualisation of businesses has been the work by Flores and Ludlow (Flores & Ludlow, 1980) who propose to perceive businesses as networks of inter-related commitments created by directives, commissives, assertives and declaratives. Winograd & Flores (1986) extended this idea and introduced a conversation-for-action schema (CFA). According to this schema a business consists of patterns of inter-related speechacts for arriving at successful conversations. A successful conversation covers a number of state changes; someone (A) states a request, someone else (B) makes a promise and then reports completion, which in the end A declares completed. Examples of approaches for business modelling that emanate from the idea of relating speech-acts to patterns are Action Workflow, Dynamic Essential Modelling (DEMO), and Business Action Theory (BAT). Action Workflow (Medina-Mora et al, 1992) regards the conversation flow as an action workflow loop. The basic sequence of actions in the action workflow loop relies on the idea that we can always identify a customer and a performer, and the loop deals with a particular action that the performer agrees to complete to the satisfaction of the customer. The action workflow loop is divided into four phases: proposal, agreement, performance and satisfaction. In DEMO (Dietz, 1999; Reijswoud, 1996) the core concept is the transaction. A transaction is a pattern of activity performed by two actors; the initiator and the executor. A transaction is composed of three phases: the Order phase in which two actors come to an agreement about the execution of some future action; the Execution phase, in which the negotiated action is executed; and the Result phase in which the actors negotiate an agreement about the result as brought about in the execution phase. BAT (Goldkuhl 1996; 1998; Lind & Goldkuhl, 1997; 2001) is a six-phase model describing generic business interaction logic. The model describes the interaction between a supplier and a customer. It starts with business prerequisites of customer and supplier and goes through business communication (with e.g. offers, inquiries, negotiation and contract) to fulfilment (through delivery and payment) and ends with the satisfied completion or dissatisfaction and possible claims. The phases are 1) business prerequisites phase, 2) exposure and contact search phase, 3) contact establishment and proposal phase 4) contractual phase, 5) fulfilment phase, and 6) completion phase. 2.3

Social actions – going beyond speech acts

The communicative view discussed in section 2.1 can be seen as an anti-thesis (Keen, 1997; Lind, 2002; Lind & Melin, 2003) in relation to the transformative view on business processes (the thesis). The communicative view emphasises communicative acts, the transformative view emphasises material acts. Claims have been made that one cannot reduce the understanding of actions to either


165


communicative or material acts (Goldkuhl, 2001). Material acts are often also communicative and communicative acts cannot be studied without taking material acts into consideration. An alternative unit of analysis has therefore been put forward by Goldkuhl & Röstlinger (2002) – the notion of social action. The basic concept of social action is action. An action is a purposeful and meaningful behaviour of a human being. A human intervenes in the world in order to create some differences. An important distinction is made between the action result and the effects of the action (von Wright, 1971). The action result lies within the range of the actor and the action effects may arise as consequences outside the control of the actor. An action is performed in the present based on a history and aims at the future (Goldkuhl & Röstlinger, 2002). A social action is an action oriented towards other persons (Weber, 1978). The action can be a communicative act, e.g. someone saying something to another person, or material. Material actions count as social actions if they are directed to other persons (Goldkuhl, 2001; Goldkuhl & Röstlinger, 2002). Actor relationships between the intervening actor and the recipient are established through social actions (Habermas, 1984). An organisation consists of human beings, artefacts and other resources, and actions performed. Humans (often supported by artefacts) perform actions in the name of the organisation (Ahrne, 1994; Taylor, 1993). Actions are performed within the organisation – internal acts - and there are also external acts towards other organisations (e.g. customers or suppliers). Humans act in order to achieve ends (Goldkuhl & Röstlinger, 2002; von Wright, 1971). Human action often aims at making material changes. Humans do however not only act in the material world – they also act communicatively towards other humans. Austin (1962) and Searle (1969) say that to communicate is also to act. Human action is about making a difference, where such difference can have impact in the social world as well as in the material world. Goldkuhl (2001) and Goldkuhl & Röstlinger (2002) present a generic model of social action including both communicative and material acts. E.g. an order from a customer to a supplier is a communicative act. The delivery of goods from the supplier to the customer is a material act. Both actions are performed by one business party (the "interventionist") and directed to the other party (the recipient). Since these actions are directed from one actor towards another actor they must both be considered as social actions. Language is not the only medium for interacting with other people. The delivery of a product to a customer is not only to be seen as a change of place of some material stuff. In this context it must also be considered as a fulfilment of a request and a promise made earlier. The generic model of social action makes a clear distinction between result and effects of an action (Goldkuhl & Röstlinger, 2002; von Wright, 1971). Results are action objects created by the intervening actor and within his range and control. A stated order (as an utterance) is the result of a communicative act. The delivered product is the result of the material deliverance act. Effects are consequences

166



which may arise after the action object has been presented to the world. A communicative act (like an order) may give rise to so-called perlocutionary effects; e.g. responses from the supplier like an order confirmation and later a delivery of products. The action object of a delivered product may lead to usage of this product by the recipient (customer); this should also be seen as an action effect. Performing social actions – either communicative or material – introduces relationships between the actors. The performance of a communicative action (like a business order) introduces clearly certain relationship between sender and recipient (Habermas, 1984). It introduces a request relationship from customer to supplier, which are accompanied by expectations. The delivery of goods also affects the relationships between customer and supplier. It is a fulfilment of the request and in this sense it terminates the established request relationship. The delivery can also introduce new relationships, like e.g. an attitude of gratitude from customer towards supplier. Actions are often multi-functional. One example of multi-functionality is that the order both represents a request to the supplier to deliver something and a commitment of paying for the delivery corresponding to the order. Another example of multi-functionality is that a delivery of a product can both be a change of place of some material stuff and a fulfilment of a request and a promise. Actions are often dual. The performer of an act (in an organisational context) both acts on behalf of himself and on behalf of the organisation that the performer represents (Ahrne, 1994). Further, acts are multi-consequential. This means that a certain act can trigger several acts. Since there exists a duality of acts and since these are multi-consequential one can distinguish between inter-organisational acts, i.e. directed towards a party in another organisation, and intra-organisational acts. It is common that an inter-organisational act triggers acts within the organisation. This means that an order from the customer, for example, might both trigger an act, such as order confirmation, directed towards the customer as a response and consequentially an act initiating a fulfilment of the customer order. 2.4

Co-ordination within and between organisations

Organisations exist through co-ordination. This is acknowledged in both classical organisational theory (e.g. Mintzberg, 1979) and communication oriented organisational theory (e.g. Taylor, 1993). The backbone of co-ordination is different types of assignments (Lind & Goldkuhl, 2002). Lind & Goldkuhl (2002) have identified three types of assignments for analysing vertical and horizontal coordination; role assignment, external product assignment and internal product assignment. These types of assignments are communicative actions. They are all of directive type (cf classification of Searle, 1979). The locutor wants the addressee to perform some action, which is the main characteristic of a directive. But more


167


can be said about these different assignments. The utterances are addressed to someone. This addressee is also the one proposed to take action. The proposed action is specified (or at least mentioned). When describing the action some other important features are also described. The beneficiary of the action is mentioned, i.e. for whom something will be made or to state it otherwise who is in favour of the action. The actions specified also involve a reference to whom the actor shall address his/her action, i.e. the recipient of the action result. This role category is called next recipient and it must be distinguished from the beneficiary. In some cases of course the next recipient and the beneficiary will coincide. The description of the action also involves the kind of action object, which is referred to, i.e. in this case, the product to handle. For a deeper communicative action analysis of different organizational assignments confer Lind & Goldkuhl (2002). Three different types of assignments need to be acknowledged in order to direct attendance towards vertical and horizontal as well as internal and external coordination. These are: 1. Role assignments (principal - agency relations) 2. Customer orders (customer – supplier relations) 3. Forwarded/transformed orders within an organization (internal process relations) The first and third assignments are performed within an organization. The first can be seen as a vertical relation and the second and third can be seen as horizontal relations. There are however important differences between external and internal acts/relations. Customer order and forwarded orders are concerned with the particular; a particular customer and a particular product. There are important differences between a customer order (i.e. external to the organization) and forwarded/transformed internal orders (or requests) that are issued within the organization. The beneficiaries of these different assignment types are, however, always the same, i.e. the customer. One important difference is that in the customer order case the customer is locutor, next recipient as well as beneficiary. This will not be the case with forwarded orders. The locutor will be an internal agent (actor). The next recipient will (often) not be the locutor. The next recipient will be the beneficiary when the product is delivered by the organisation, but not for pure internal acts. For such cases the next recipient will be an internal agent (actor). There are also important differences between principal - agency relations and horizontal relations. Role assignments are internal acts (i.e. made within the organization) and are concerned with the typical (all possible customers and products). Role assignments are, as mentioned above directives. However they also have a declarative force since they appoint actors to roles. The differences between the different types of assignments are illustrated in table 1 below. In order to handle this view of co-ordination there is a need to distinguish between different types of assignments as well as between different types of roles

168



(c.f. Lind & Goldkuhl, 2002). There is a need to distinguish between several roles, which goes beyond the traditional role repertoire in speech-act based modelling approaches (such as DEMO and Action Workflow). The roles are: • Requester (locutor) • Performer (producer) • Next recipient • Beneficiary Type of assignment Role assignment

External product assignment (Customer order) Internal product assignment (Forwarded order)

Communication Organizational place dimension Internal Vertical

External

Horizontal

Internal

Horizontal

Degree of specificality Typical products and customers (type level) Particular products and customers (instance level) Particular products and customers (instance level)

Communication roles Organization (principal) Æ Agent Customer Æ Organization (supplier) Agent Æ Agent

Table 1: Characterizations of different types of assignments (Lind & Goldkuhl, 2002) It is the special case of customer order relations where the roles of locutor, next recipient and beneficiary coincide. When describing internal forwarded order relations these three roles will not coincide in the same way. The conclusion made by Lind & Goldkuhl (2002) is that it is not appropriate to use the two role-model (of DEMO or Action Workflow) in analysis of internal workflows. Another way to say this is that for the modelling of interaction and co-ordination traditional speech act based modelling approaches are not enough for getting a comprehensive view of organisational work.

3

The Case: A mail-order setting for modelling interaction and co-ordination

The mail-order tradition in Sweden has been well established for about fifty years. A project has been initiated with a joint working group consisting of members from different mail-order companies, researchers and participants from the Swedish mail-order association. This working group studies IT and business development in a mail-order cluster (c.f. Edström et al, 2003). The focus is both on a holistic level, i.e. the cluster in itself, and on a detailed level, i.e. on each company constituting the cluster. The term mail-order is applicable not only to


169


mail, but also to telephone, radio, television, and so on and not only to the order alone, but also to the fulfilment of the order (Cohen, 1996). This empirical study was organised as an action oriented case study of a mailorder firm. It consisted of three process reconstruction workshops with actors from the specific mail-order firm. Departments such as IT, procurement, customer service, warehouse and marketing were represented in the workshops. The first workshop was aimed at describing the work practice setting with the purpose of creating a common understanding of the specific business. The ambition was also to describe the collaboration that exists in the business between different roles. During the second workshop the flow of activities that constitutes the business was reconstructed. Through this reconstruction a hypothesis concerning the logic of the business was unfolded. From this new understanding the different processes of the business were identified. The “raw” material that was produced during the workshops was revised and adapted between the different workshops. The ambition with this was to create prerequisites for improvement in the reconstruction process. In order to be able to do this work efficiently and to ensure that it was grounded on the discussions that took place during the workshops, the workshops were documented on video (three cameras) and audio, and in written notes. The “in-between” work was presented to the participants at the following workshops. It was used as a mean to create a meaningful discussion about the business, problems and question marks that had been identified during the reflective analysis. Through this procedure a verified reconstruction of the particular mail-order firm evolved. This action-oriented case study was structured according to the notion of how work-practice reconstruction should be conducted as described in Theory of Practice (TOP) (Goldkuhl & Röstlinger, 2002) and in the work-practice oriented approaches for process determination (c.f. Lind 2002; 2003). The results of the workshops were documented with the TOP-model, action diagrams, process diagrams and co-operation diagrams (see further down). In the following sections the mail-order setting will be described as well as the strategy for the empirical study. After that we elaborate on the knowledge we received from a business analysis performed at one particular mail-order firm within the mail-order cluster. 3.1

The mail-order setting

The Swedish mail-order business has developed from the rich textile tradition in Borås and the surrounding area of Sjuhärad. The abundant supply of fairly cheap textile and clothing in the area and the tradition of the travelling salesman ("knalle") that travelled by foot to see his clients was a commercial tradition of the pre-industrial area. The arrival of large scale manufacturing in the textile industry also inspired other forms of trading such as mail-order. The mail-order firms sent

170



out their catalogues to a large number of potential customers and bought a large part of their products in the Sjuhärad region. When Swedish textile industry could no longer compete with imports the mail-order firms switched their supply patterns to cheaper suppliers abroad. The business of a mail-order firm follows a particular rhythm since the product assortment is season-based. Assortment planning and development is recurrent for each season and serves as a trigger for forecasting, procurement and production of the mail-order catalogue. The catalogue remains the dominating medium and sales channel. Nowadays, companies invest heavily in the Internet as a communication medium and sales channel. The product assortment is based on an analysis of potential customer needs and since transportation lead times from suppliers in Asia are substantial, the task of sales forecasting becomes crucial. The success of a mail-order firm is highly dependent on a successful assortment planning and forecasting of demand. Traditionally mail-order companies have products in their own stock before letting the customers placing orders. This also means that traditional mail-order companies have advanced routines for logistics and stock handling. The production of mail-order catalogues and the procurement and stocking of products are done in parallel. Customers receive product information and place their orders by mail, telephone or the Internet. It is rare that the mail-order customer can negotiate the price or other aspects of the customer offer. When the order is placed the mailorder firm issues an order confirmation and reserves the product(s). Based on the order, products will be picked from stock and packed and then delivered together with a request for payment. Running a mail-order firm involves a number of critical success factors. They include a competitive assortment, making forecasts of future demand, making optimal procurement and establishing supply chains to ensure that products arrive at the customer according to the customers´ expectations. The success of a mailorder firm is to manage the handling of the work for potential as well as particular customers in an efficient way. One driving force for such efficiency is the support by integrated information technology. Essential functions and relationships to the environment of a traditional mail-order firm are presented in figure 1.


171


Order

Assortment planning & development

Assortment Marketing and sales Customer order

Invoice Suppliers

Procurement Payment

Product

Products (in stock)

Customer service Product

Stock handling Handling of incoming deliveries

Potential mail order customers

Delivery

Existing mail order customers

Invoice

Finance Payment

The mail order company

Figure 1: The mail-order firm and its environment (Edström et al, 2003) From figure 1 above it can be derived that there are at least two dimensions that are crucial to a mail-order business. These two dimensions are the product flow (including information) and the commercial interaction, between the mail-order firm and their customers as well as between the mail-order firm and their suppliers. Figure 1 illustrates the business of one firm although most of the time business processes cross boundaries to a number of other organisations. The ordinary mail-order firm has a large number of customers where each customer order is relatively small. The margins are low, which means that the success of a mail-order firm depends on large transaction volumes. The low margins have forced the industry to become exceptionally cost efficient. Due to the amount of transactions and the change of the assortment each season the logistics become complicated. To summarise, important characteristics of a mail-order firm are that it: • Handles seasoned-based products • Issues standardised offers • Is customer intensive • Is dependent on making good forecasts • Has long planning cycles • Has an irregular flow of customer orders • Has a complicated providing mechanism • Performs multiple procurements per season • Uses multi-channels for receiving customer orders • Has advanced procedures for handling returned goods All these mail-order characteristics put demand on the mail-order firm to be highly efficient and to make accurate prognostications in order to become successful.

172



3.2

The mail-order firm

The mail-order firm, at which our analysis has been performed, belongs to a larger owner group of companies (a European group of retail business) that trade in different products such as garments, furniture, gifts and home electronics through the mail distribution channel to different European customer markets. The firm markets and sells garments for the whole family as well as products for the home, leisure and electronics. Garments and home-related products are two different categories of products in the repertoire of products in the firm. In order for the mail-order firm to perform business, i.e. to receive and fulfil customer orders, there is a need for exposing the product repertoire. The exposure is done through mail-order catalogues and the e-commerce site. The product repertoire is in regard to garments based on season. Products that are directed towards home, leisure and electronics follow the planning and development of the garment assortment, but are not as sensitive to the season as the garments. The product repertoire consists of own-assortment products, owner-assortment products as well as factory-produced products (not produced in advance) The planning and development work is initiated approximately a year prior the start of the season, which means that the mail-order firm handles issues for multiple seasons at the same time. Each season is approx. six months. Planning and development of the product repertoire handled by procurement initiates the work for an upcoming season. The task of forecasting is thus to balance between the amount and type of products that can be sold with profit and the amount and type of products to procure. The result of this task is mail-order catalogues, i.e. the product repertoire, and made procurements. The goal for a mail-order firm is that there should be products in stock in accordance with the customer order to ensure short lead-times. This especially since the products are produced in other parts of the world. The planning and development of the assortment is governed by internal assignments. This mail-order firm produces a number of different catalogues (one main catalogue, two follow-up catalogues and several sales catalogues) with the purpose of exposing the assortments and thereby selling products to potential customers. The goal is to arrive at a stock-level close to zero at the end of the season. The procurement department defines the product offers for each catalogue. Planning and development governs the specification and layout of the mail-order catalogues as well as the procurement to be made for the upcoming season. With the procurement-plan as a foundation the procurement department has a basis for each catalogue. This basis consists of pictures and specifications and assigns the catalogue function to produce a prototype of the layout for the catalogue. The interaction between these two functions is intense during the catalogue production. The final catalogue layout is in the end approved by the procurement function. When approved two things happen. First the catalogue department forwards an


173


external assignment to the printing house to print the catalogues. Second the procurement department assigns the marketing department a marketing assignment to market the specific products (via the catalogue) to potential customers. When the printing process is finished, the catalogues are delivered to the distributor of the catalogues. In order for the distributor to deliver the catalogues, this external partner receives addresses from the marketing department in the mail-order firm. In terms of the co-ordination logic the distributor receives through this action an external assignment that instructs the distributor to deliver the catalogues to a number of specific recipients that are the potential customers for the mail-order firms’ products. Mail-order catalogue (product repertoire

Printing house

Catalogue distributor

Mail-order catalogue (product repertoire)

Catalogue (original) Catalogue department

Catalogue plan

Adresses (selected)

Potential customer

Catalogue assignment Procurement order (external product assignment)

Marketing assignment

Marketing Customer order (external product assignment)

Customer profiles

Samples

Information about Sold items

Procurement Product information

Payment

Delivery notice (order confirmation) Payment request

Customer service

Factory orders (forwarded order)

Payment

Suppliers Info about received products

and OWNER

Owner assortment orders (forwarded orders)

D istributor (to the mailorder firm / customer)

Customer (particular customer)

Special offers Notification about products to deliver (forwarded order)

Orders to pick and pack - own assortment (forwarded order)

Payment (sum of C.O.D)

Repayment

Stock-level (capacity, reservation)

Payment (C.O.D)

Notifcation

Products (+ offers)

Products Warehouse

Returned products

Returned products

Products (+ offers)

Condemned products

Products to sell in warehouse shop

Distributor (to the customer)

Returned products

Products

Legend

Information or material Internal role

External role

Communication flow

Material flow

Indicates initiative and performer

Figure 2: Co-operation diagram concerning the mail-order firm

174



In addition to the catalogues the company also uses an e-commerce site to market and sell the different products. The particular customer uses different channels (e.g. phone, letter, fax, internet) to place the order based on the offer made by the mail-order firm. The customer order is to be regarded as an external product assignment directed to the customer service (see figure 2). After checking the availability (stock level) a product-reservation is made which means that the amount of available products is decreased. Then the customer service confirms the order by a delivery notice (order confirmation). Since the products can be of different kinds such as own-assortment, owner-assortment orders and factoryproduced products the original customer order will be split into different parts depending on the types of products requested by the customer. The different parts of the orders will then be forwarded to their recipients, i.e. to the warehouse, to the owner or to the factory, in order to fulfil the customer order. The factory order will be delivered directly to the customer. Some orders consisting of both own-assortment and owner-assortment will be jointly packed which requires that the mail-order firm has to wait for the owner-assortment products to arrive at the firm before this packing can be made. Other orders consisting of both kinds of products might be delivered in separate packages. Products that are delivered from the mail-order firm’s warehouse are packed together with different types of delivery documents such as a delivery note and a return slip. It also consists of special offers on other products that the mail-order firm has in its repertoire. This is supposed to initiate more customer requests. These special offers are designed by the marketing department and given to the warehouse as an internal assignment. During execution of the fulfilment phase the warehouse takes on both the role of fulfilling the original customer request (packing and handing over the package to the distributor) and that of acting as a marketing channel towards the particular customer to generate new customer orders from him/her. The payment from the customer can be handled in different ways, either as a C. O .D (cash-on-delivery) or as invoice-based accounts. The distributor delivering the products to the customer handles the first way. The second way is handled directly by the customer service. There is also, according to Swedish law, a possibility for the customer to return the products within 14 days. The warehouse handles the returned goods and also the compensation towards the customer. Some products are also returned to the supplier. The business logic, in terms of interaction and co-ordination is depicted in figure 2. Note that we have made some simplifications in order to highlight the co-ordinational logic. The material flows in the mail-order firm differ (see figure 3) depending on which type of product is examined.


175


Products (factory orders)

The mail-order firm’s warehous

Products

Owner-assortment products (for joint packaging)

Quality control

Distributor (to the mail-order firm / customer)

Buffer stock

Picking and packing stock

Delivery stock

Products (+ offers)

Distributor (to the customer)

Customer (particular customer)

Owner "Buffer stock"

Handling of returned products

Return produ ed cts

Owner

Orders to pick and pack (forwarded orders)

Special offers

Info about arrived owner-assortment product

Inbound logistic s

Info about received products

Supplier

Condemned products

Products to sell in warehouse shop

Returned products

Repayment

Products (directly to the customer)

Legend

Information or material Internal role

External role

Communication flow

Material flow


Figure 3: Different material flows in the mail-order firm Concerning the delivery to the customer four flows can be identified: 1. The distributions of own-assortment products through the warehouse with different kinds of stocks 2. The distribution of factory-produced products directly to the customer 3. The distribution of owner-assortment products directly to the customer 4. The joint distribution of own-assortment and owner-assortment products to the customer There is also a material flow going “in reverse”, which depicts the handling of products returned by the customer to the mail-order firm. The goods that are returned can either be regarded as condemned products, re-sold through the mailorder logic, sold in the warehouse-shop or be returned to the supplier. These different material flows are visualised in the schema below:

4 4.1

Analysis: Modelling co-ordination Co-ordination for potential and particular customers

The horizontal co-ordination of the mail-order firm is two-folded. A distinction can be made between actions that are performed for particular customers and for

176



potential customers (c.f. Lind, 2003). The mail-order firm indicates that there is a mixture of actions going on for particular and potential customers. Particular customers are customers that the company involves in their business interaction in different communicative and material exchanges (c.f. Lind & Goldkuh, 2001; Taylor, 1993). A potential customer can mean any customer and is the customer that has not yet become particular. In the following section, the figures (figure 4 and figure 5) are simplifications of the above presented co-ordination diagrams to emphasise the co-ordination related to one sub-practice (c.f. Lind, 2003). All co-ordination of actions for particular customers in the mail-order firm has its origins in the customer order, i.e. the external product assignment. This assignment is split into different sub-assignments, internally or externally forwarded with the purpose to fulfil the customer order. The following coordinational relationships concerning actions performed for particular customers, in terms of assignments and fulfilment of assignment, can be identified from the mail-order case (see also figure 4): • The customer order as an external product assignment directed towards the mail-order firm and the customer service within the mail-order firm [the customer towards the mail-order firm, the customer towards the customer service]. • The factory order, owner-assortment order and the own-assortment order as forwarded order directed to internal and/or external parties [the customer service towards the warehouse/the owner and/or the factory]. Note that the factory order first goes to procurement and then further on to the factory. • The notification about products to deliver as a forwarded order directed to the distributor [the customer service towards the distributor]. • The delivery of products from owner to the warehouse [the owner to the warehouse] • The handing of products to the distributor [the warehouse to the distributor]. • The delivery of products from owner to the distributor [the owner to the distributor] • The delivery of products from factory to the distributor [the factory to the distributor] • The distribution of the products to the customer by the distributor [the distributor to the customer]. This is to be regarded as the fulfilment of the customer order. Note that we have excluded payment processes for the reason of space. For the same reason we have excluded handling of returned products as well communicative acts regarding confirmation. It is possible to regard the customer order as an assignment directed to the mail-order firm and to the customer service within the firm since actions are dual. The customer service, as well as other actors of the mail-order firm, acts on behalf of the mail-order firm. The same goes for


177


other actions in which actors in the firm direct assignments to external and internal actors. Supplier

Factory order

Legend

Procurment

Role

Factory order

Communication flow

Owner

Customer Service

Owner-assortment order Ownassortment order Product

Warehouse

Customer order

Buyer (particular)

Material flow Indicates initiative and performer

Notification

Product

Product

Distributor

Product

Product

Figure 4: Co-ordinational relationships concerning actions performed for particular customers The other aspect of co-ordination concerns the co-ordination of work performed for potential customers. Such co-ordination is based on accurate forecasting. There is a lot of work performed by the mail-order firm without knowing the customer who will potentially buy the product. A new season is initiated by procurement. Procurement both manages the planning and development of the assortment as well as procurements. When the assortment is set procurement issues assignments directed both to internal and external parties. The following co-ordinational relationships concerning actions performed for potential customers, in terms of assignments and fulfilment of assignments, can be identified from this case (see also figure 5): • The catalogue assignment by procurement directed towards the catalogue department [procurement towards the catalogue department]. The printing house (further down in the list) fulfils this assignment after the catalogue department refines an original of the mail-order catalogue. • The marketing assignment by procurement directed towards the marketing department [procurement towards the marketing department]. The catalogue distributor fulfils this assignment after the marketing department selects the addresses and forwards the assignment. • The printing assignment by the catalogue department directed towards the printing house [catalogue department towards the printing house]. The printing house fulfils this assignment by printing an accurate number of catalogues and then delivering the catalogues to the catalogue distributor.

178


Modelling interaction and co-ordination as business communication •

•

The distribution assignment by the marketing department directed towards the catalogue distributor [marketing department towards the catalogue distributor]. The catalogue distributor fulfils the assignment by distributing the catalogue to potential customers according to selected addresses. The assignment (procurement order) by procurement directed towards (external) suppliers [procurement towards external suppliers]. The external supplier fulfils the assignment by delivering samples to procurement and products to the warehouse. Distribution assignment Procurement order

Market department

Marketing assignment

Procurement Catalogue assignment

Supplier

Mail order catalouge

Printing assignment

Catalouge department

Product

Catalouge distr.

Buyer (potential)

Mail-order catalouges

Printing house

Warehouse

Legend Role

Communication flow

Material flow


Figure 5: Co-ordinational relationships concerning actions performed for potential customers The two contexts described above can be regarded as sub-practices (c.f. Lind, 2003). The first one is about performing actions for particular customers and the other one is about performing actions for potential customers. A question that arose during the analysis was how these two sub practices relate to each other. A number of inter-relations can be identified: • First, there is an inter-relation through the mail-order catalogue. The distribution of the mail-order catalogue to the potential customers is a request to the potential customer to become particular. One can say that the interaction between these two sub-practices is via the exposure of the product repertoire (the offering). • Second, there is an inter-relation between the marketing department and the warehouse through the special offer. The special offer is a way to make offers about other products not yet bought by the particular customer. • Third, there is an inter-relation inside the warehouse in which products aimed for potential customers become bounded to a particular customer through picking and packing according to the forwarded customer order (from customer service). • Fourth, there is an inter-relation between the warehouse and customer service through information about stock-level and reservation of products. Note that a


179


particular product is not reserved for a particular customer before the customer order is confirmed. It is rather the type of product that is reserved to a certain amount. Since procurement both handles factory-produced orders and forecasting this actor both acts for potential and for particular customers. The description of the mail-order firm reveals a mixture of horizontal coordination as well as of horizontal transformation. As mentioned in the theoretical framework co-ordination is often based on communication (c.f. Lind & Goldkuhl, 2002). In the case of the mail-order firm the analysis indicates that there exist both communicational and transformational aspects of interaction and co-ordination which needs to be taken into consideration in order to understand the work performed by such an organisation. This analysis also reveals some necessary relationships within the firm. How should the relationship between the procurement department and the warehouse be? Should not the warehouse be informed about made procurements and should not procurement be informed about fulfilment? 4.2

Social actions as initiatives in action pairs

The result of analysing the case study reveals that different forms of social actions function as initiatives for other actions in action pairs (c.f. adjacency pair according to Sacks, 1992). In previous parts of this paper social actions are characterised as material and/or communicative acts. What the analysis discloses is that both communicative and material acts are initiatives (triggers) for other acts and therefore function as important co-ordination means in this mail-order firm: • A communicative act triggering other communicative acts; in this case study there are several instances that demonstrate how a communicative act is an initiative for other communicative acts. One example is the case where a potential customer requests a particular product from the catalogue when telephoning the customer service. This triggers customer service to conduct an interaction with the ordering system in order to check the current stock level on this product. If the answer from the warehouse (via the system) is positive, i.e. there are products available, a reservation is made and the amount of available products is decreased. • A communicative act triggering material acts; in this case study this variant of initiative can be exemplified by the following example. When the particular customer request is forwarded by the customer service to the warehouse this result in an order (forwarded assignment) to gather and pack the request from the own-assortment stock. The warehouse personnel resulting in a customerspecific package ready to be delivered execute this order through material acts. • A material act triggering communicative acts; the analysis of the material flow reveals that there are also material acts that initiates some communicative

180



acts. The action of picking and packing orders that involve orders of own- and owner-assortment supposed to be packaged jointly will not be initiated before the product sent by the owner-assortment arrives at the mail-order firm. When this package from the owner’s warehouse arrives at the mail-order firm the arrival of the package results in a registration of the product which initiates the picking and packing of the own-assortment product that is supposed to be packaged jointly with the owner-assortment product. These acts result in a customer specific package consisting of different types of products ready to be delivered. • A material act triggering other material acts; when the products arrive at the inbound logistics in the warehouse they are, as described above, registered by the warehouse personnel in the warehouse system. As a last step in this procedure a slip is placed on the inbound package and the package proceeds on the conveyor belt to another warehouse employee who places the package in the buffer stock according to the information on the slip. It is the package arriving at the next stage that triggers the material acts of taking care of the package rather than the slip on the package. The analysis of the case reveals how different types of actions can initiate other actions in the logic of realising mail-order business, i.e. bringing the offer to the potential customer as well as bringing the requested product to the particular customer. In several of the cases revealed through the reconstruction and the analysis of the reconstruction the initiation was triggered by an action that had an intervened, i.e. both communicative and material, character. 4.3

Dependent business transactions

As discussed in section 2.2 of this paper, actions are dual. This means that actions are directed to and by the mail-order firm and external actors. By regarding these interactions as business transactions according to the BAT-model (Goldkuhl 1996; 1998; Lind & Goldkuhl, 1997; 2001) the following can be said. The interaction between the customer (the potential and the particular) and the mail-order firm is constituted by the following social actions: • The offer (product repertoire) • The customer order • The order confirmation • The request for payment • The payment by the customer • The delivery of products (including offers for other products) • Possibly the return of products from customer • Possibly refunding


181


All these inter-organisational actions are directed towards or initiated by actors within the mail-order firm acting on behalf of the firm. Sometimes this is done via forwarding different assignments among different parties. In the interaction between the mail-order firm and different suppliers there are business transactions going on as well. These business transactions are also constituted of phases of communicative and material exchanges. These exchanges have a relationship to the business transactions going on in the customer interaction. Dependent on the product ordered by the customer these dependencies however differ. The delivery of own-assortment products to particular customers requires that the products ordered by the particular customer are in stock. This means that the business transaction between the mail-order firm and the supplier has to be performed prior the business transaction between the mail-order firm and the customer. The delivery of owner-assortment products and factory-produced products requires that the business transaction between the mail-order firm and the owner / factory is initiated based on the customer order. This means that the business transaction between the mail-order firm and the customer is inter-twined with the business transaction between the mail-order firm and the supplier. Note that there is also a special case of jointly packing owner-assortment and ownassortment products which requires both dependencies between the business transactions mentioned above. Such dependencies between the supplier-oriented and customer-oriented business transactions are rarely addressed in traditional speech-act modelling approaches.

5

Conclusions

The business analysis performed at the mail-order firm has created a need for using different business models to reveal the complexity in the organisational work conducted. In order to understand the business logic there has been a need to model and describe business processes on both detailed and on arbitrary levels. This has been done by using action diagrams (Goldkuhl, 1992; Lind & Goldkuhl, 1997) and process diagrams (Lind & Goldkuhl, 1997; Lind, 2003) as well as cooperation diagrams. A business process reconstruction reveals the sequential and parallel relationships between actions in reaching and fulfilling agreements. The business process models on arbitrary levels reveal the flow of actions performed during business transactions. By the help of this case we have however shown the need for reconstructing inter- and intra-organisational interaction. Using co-operation diagrams that reveals the logic of interaction as well as the co-ordinational relationships between different actors (internal and external) has fulfilled this need. These co-ordinational relationships are based on the communicative characteristics of horizontal co-ordination, such as external and internal product assignments.

182



In speech-act modelling approaches, such as DEMO (Dietz, 1999) and action workflow (Medina-Mora et al, 1992) it seems that pre-defined patterns are governing the focus of attention during business modelling. In these modelling approaches focus is put upon both the characteristics of the actions themselves and dependencies between the actions as a pre-defined and simplified view on action patterns divided into three or four phases. This means that one might miss important aspects during reconstruction that from a perspective of co-ordinational logic might be possible to improve. Reconstruction is about revealing and visualising actions performed currently as part of action patterns as a basis for redesign. It is thereby important that the reconstruction is not too governed by these simplified pre-defined patterns advocated for in different speech-act based modelling approaches. We have felt that modelling interaction and co-ordination in the mail-order firm has been very complex. This has demanded predefined categories concerning recognition of: • different types of actions for co-ordination (external, internal, horizontal and vertical) • different types of assignments as communicative actions (external product assignment, forwarded product assignments and internal product assignments) • the duality of organisational actions (actors act on behalf of organisations) • both communicative as well as material actions (= social actions) • different phases of exchange (communicative and material) constituting business transactions • actions performed for potential and particular customers (beneficiaries) We believe that these categories should be used for asking and answering questions during reconstruction and thereby letting action patterns evolve from the particular modelling situation. Our belief is however that one should be careful with using pre-defined patterns of communicative and material acts during business modelling. Reconstruction should be performed without forcing an ideal picture of action patterns. The action patterns should be derived inductively by focusing the establishment and fulfilment of commitments. Thereby the context specific characteristics can be acknowledged. Based on our experience of using this broader perspective on business modelling we claim that there is a need for complementary approaches to both traditional business process modelling and to speech-act based business process modelling. Such a complementary approach should focus on the interaction between different actors. By extending Lind & Goldkuhl (1997) regarding the reconstruction of business processes we claim that there is a need for both detailed models of the action logic and different models on arbitrary levels revealing different business aspects based on the detailed models. There is a need for business models on arbitrary levels that focus the process-oriented aspects and other business models that focus on how assignments are created, forwarded and fulfilled in the organisational context. Our case study did not fulfil our needs to


183


model the vertical dimension of co-ordination. This dimension turned out to be hard to model and we view it as an important task to be focused by further research. Another issue of further research is the definition of organisational actors. Co-ordination occurs through interaction between actors. On an organisational level it is natural to define such actors. But how should actors within the organisation be defined? Acknowledgements This paper is based on work performed within the project “The use of IT in innovative business models within the mail order industry” founded by the KKfoundation.

References Ahrne G. (1994) Social Organizations. Interaction Inside, Outside and Between Organization, Sage, London Austin J. L. (1962) How to do things with words, Oxford University Press Cohen W. A. (1996) Building a Mail Order Business: A Complete Manual for Success, 4th ed. John Wiley & Sons, New York Denning, P., Dargan P. (1996): Action-Centred Design in Winograd T. (1996): Bringing Design to Software Addison-Wesley, Boston. Dietz J. L. G. (1999) Understanding and Modelling Business Processes with DEMO, Proc. 18th International Conference on Conceptual Modeling (ER’99), Paris Edström A., Lind M., Ljungberg J. (2003) Learning, Innovation and IT-usage – A Research Approach to Regional Development, submitted paper Flores F., Ludlow J. J. (1980) Doing and Speaking in the Office, In: Fick G., Sprague R. H. Jr. (Eds.) Decision Support Systems: Issues and Challenges, pp. 95-118, Pergamon Press, New York Goldkuhl G (1992) Contextual activity modelling of information systems, in Proceedings of "3rd int. working Conference on Dynamic Modelling of information systems", Noordwijkerhout Goldkuhl G. (1996) Generic Business Frameworks and Action Modelling, In: Verharen E., Rijst N. van, Dietz J. (eds.) Proceedings of the International Workshop on the Language/Action Perspective on Communication Modeling, Oisterwijk, The Netherlands Goldkuhl G. (1998) The Six Phases of Business Processes – Business Communication and the Exchange of Value, Accepted to The 12th Biennial ITS (ITS’98) conference – Beyond convergence, Stockholm Goldkuhl G. (2001) Communicative vs material actions: Instrumentality, sociality and comprehensibility, in Schoop M, Taylor J (Eds, 2001) Proceedings of the 6th Int Workshop on the Language Action Perspective (LAP2001), RWTH, Aachen

184



Goldkuhl G., Lyytinen K. (1984) Information systems specification as rule reconstruction, in Bemelmans T. (Eds. 1984) Beyond productivity: Information systems development for organisational effectiveness, North-Holland, Amsterdam Goldkuhl G., Röstlinger A. (2002) Towards an integral understanding of organisations and information systems: Convergence of three theories, in Proc of the 5th International Workshop on Organisational Semiotics, Delft Habermas J. (1979) Communication and the evolution of society, Heinemann, London Habermas J. (1984) The theory of communicative action 1, Reason and the rationalization of society, Beacon Press Keen P. G. W. (1997) The Process Edge – Creating Value where IT Counts. Harvard Business School Press, Boston Lind M. (2002) Dividing Businesses into Processes – Foundations for Modelling Essentials, In: Liu K., Clarke R. J., Andersen P. B., Stamper R. K. (Eds.) Organizational Semiotics – Evolving a Science of Information Systems, IFIP TC8/WG8.1, Kluwer Academic Publisher, pp. 211230 Lind M. (2003): The Diversity of Work Practices - Challenging the Existing Notion of Business Process Types in Goldkuhl G., Lind M., Ågerfalk P. (2003, Eds.) Proceedings of Action in Language, Organisations and Information Systems (ALOIS), Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden, pp. 123-138 Lind M., Goldkuhl G. (1997) Reconstruction of Different Business Processes – a Theory and Method Driven Analysis, In: Dignum F., Dietz J. (Eds.) Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Communication Modeling – the Language/Action Perspective, Eindhoven University of Technology Lind M., Goldkuhl G. (2001) Generic Layered Patterns for Business Modelling, In: Schoop M., Taylor J. (Eds.) Proceedings of the Sixth International Workshop on the Language-Action Perspective on Communication Modelling (LAP 2001) Lind M., Goldkuhl G. (2002) Questioning two-role models or who bakes the pizza?, Accepted to The Seventh International Workshop on the Language-Action Perspective on Communication Modeling (LAP 2002), June 12-13 2002, Delft Lind M., Melin U. (2003) Dialectics in Information Systems Research - Potentials and Challenges in Remenyi D., Brown A. (2003, Eds.) Proceedings of the 2nd European Conference on Research Methodology for Business and Management Studies (ECRM’2003), Reading University, Reading, UK, pp. 209-218 Medina-Mora R., Winograd T., Flores R., Flores F. (1992) The Action Workflow Approach to Workflow Management Technology, In: Turner J., Kraut R. (Eds.) Proceedings of the Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work, CSCW’92, ACM Press, New York Mintzberg H. (1979) The structuring of organizations, Prentice-Hall, N.J. Polanyi M (1966) The tacit dimension, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London Reijswoud V. E. van (1996) The Structure of Business Communication: Theory, Model and Application, Doctoral Dissertation, Delft University of Technology


185


Reijswoud V. E. van, Lind M. (1998) Comparing Two Business Modelling Approaches in the Language Action Perspective, In: Goldkuhl G., Lind M., Seigerroth, U. (Eds.) The Language Action Perspective on Communication Modelling: Proceedings of the Third International Workshop (LAP’98), Jönköping International Business School Röstlinger A., Goldkuhl G., Hedström K., Johansson R. (1997): Processorienterat förändringsarbete inom omsorgen [in swedish]. CMTO, Linköping University Sacks H. (1992) Lectures on conversation, Blackwell, Oxford Searle J. R. (1969) Speech Acts. An Essay in the Philosophy of Language, Cambridge University Press, London Searle J. R. (1979) Expression and meaning. Studies in the theory of speech acts, Cambridge University Press, London Taylor J. R. (1993) Rethinking the Theory of Organizational Communication: How to Read an Organisation, Ablex, Norwood Weber M. (1978) Economy and society. University of California Press, Berkeley Weigand H., De Moor A. (2001) A Framework fort he Normative Analysis of Workflow Loops, In: Shoop M., Taylor J. (Eds.) Proceedings of the Sixth International Workshop on the Language-Action Perspective on Communication Modelling (LAP 2001) Winograd T. , Flores F. (1986) Understanding Computers and Cognition: A New Foundation for Design, Ablex, Norwood NJ von Wright G. H. (1971) Explanation and Understanding, Rouledge&Kegan Paul, London

186


Modelling interaction and co-ordination as business ... - CiteSeerX

Modelling interaction and co-ordination as business ... - CiteSeerX

Suggest Documents

Modelling interaction and co-ordination as business communication in

Modelling Business Communication as a

modelling human-computer interaction as ... - Semantic Scholar

Modelling design interpretation as interaction of

Business Organization as a Coordination Problem - The Business

business modelling with uml - CiteSeerX

Modelling Business Communication as a Foundation for ... - CiteSeerX

Uncovering the organisational modelling and business ... - CiteSeerX

Modelling and Measuring Business Risk - CiteSeerX

MODELLING THE INTERACTION BETWEEN WATER ... - CiteSeerX

Modelling interaction of multispecies plasmas with ... - CiteSeerX

Transformational Leadership and Group Interaction as ... - CiteSeerX

modeling coordination in business- webs - CiteSeerX

Modelling and Externalising Learners' Interaction

Indirect interaction and decentralized coordination - UConn - CSE

Coordination Variables, Coordination Functions, and ... - CiteSeerX

coordination as energy-in- conversation - CiteSeerX

Coordination Variables, Coordination Functions, and ... - CiteSeerX

Coordination and Risk-Sharing in E-Business - CiteSeerX

Modelling Project Coordination in a Multi-Agent Framework - CiteSeerX

Interaction between business and government as a threat to the ...

The generics of business interaction - emphasizing ... - CiteSeerX

Business Suitability Principles for Workflow Modelling - CiteSeerX

Goal-Driven Business Process Modelling - CiteSeerX