Business Rules Management Solutions Problem Space: Situational Factors

Business rules management solutions are widely applied, standalone or in combination with business process management solutions. Yet scientific research on business rules management solutions is limited. The purpose of this paper is to define the business rules management solution problem space. Using contingency theory and relational theory as our lens, we conducted a qualitative study on 39 business rules management solutions. The range of data sources included interviews and document analysis. From the qualitative study six situational factors have been defined to classify the business rules management solution space: 1) value proposition, 2) approach, 3) standardization, 4) change frequency, 5) n-order compliance, and 6) integrative power of the software environment. The six factors can be clustered in three structures 1) deep structure, 2) physical structure and, 3) organizational structure. The classification of the problem space provides a framework for the analysis of business rules management solutions.