Generic Layered Patterns for Business Modelling

When developing information systems business modelling is needed in order to highlight the essentials of businesses. Patterns of inter-related speech acts are the basis for identifying essentials in Language/Action-oriented approaches for business modelling. Weigand et al. has made an attempt to conceptualise the notion of patterns in a layered architecture founded in such approaches. In this paper we present a framework of generic layered patterns for business interaction inspired by a critical examination of Weigand’s meta-pattern framework. Through our framework of interdependent layers of generic patterns based on solid foundations that transcends the notion of speech acts we are able to describe and understand short-termed and longtermed business interaction. The five layers of generic patterns are business act as the basic unit of analysis, action pair, exchange, business transaction, and transaction group. Each layer, except for the first one, is derived from lower layers. 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 Sixth International Workshop on the Language-Action Perspective on Communication Modelling (LAP 2001) Montreal, Canada, July 21-22, 2001 (M. Schoop, J. Taylor, eds.) http://www-i5.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/conf/lap2001/ M. Lind and G. Goldkuhl 110 The Language-Action Perspective on Communication Modelling 2001