Modeling contexts for business process oriented knowledge support

Abstract

In this paper, we propose an organizational model to describe the execution of business activities. The model offers a dynamic, actor centered, context based and business process oriented perspective of the organization that explicitly addresses the information and collaboration requirements derived from human multi-tasking capabilities. Actors are approached as a network of contexts managed by an "operating system". Three kinds of actors are defined; human, business process and organization actor. Two context types are introduced. An action context defines the specific behavior and information needs of a human actor performing a task under a given role, at particular time intervals. Interaction contexts support and regulate activity-related interactions among action contexts. This modeling approach seeks to facilitate a personalized, proactive and timely knowledge support to human business actors. We illustrate these ideas with working examples. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.