View-Based Contracts in an E-Service Cross-Organizational Workflow Environment

In an e-service environment, workflow involves not only a single organization but also a number of business partners. Workflow inter-operability is therefore an important issue for workflow enactment in such an environment. In this paper, we introduce a novel concept of workflow views as a fundamental support for E-service workflow inter-operability and for controlled visibility by external parties. Furthermore, we develop a contract model based on workflow views and demonstrate how management of contracts can be facilitated, with an Internet start-up E-service inter-organization workflow example.