Process Models and Business Models - A Unified Framework

In e-Commerce, there are two fundamental types of models, business models and process models. A business model is concerned with value exchanges among business partners, while a process model focuses on operational and procedural aspects of business communication. Thus, a business model defines the what in an e-Commerce system, while a process model defines the how. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the contents of business models and process models and to show how they can be integrated. We are using ebXML as a conceptual and notational framework for our approach. The theoretical foundations of our approach are based on the Language/Action approach and REA. We illustrate how our approach can be used to facilitate integration, process specification and process pattern interpretation.