The role of context within the interactions of knowledge intensive processes

Abstract

With the evolution of the Business Process Management (BPM) research field, many researchers started to perceive a specific type of process as being critical to organizations, the so-called Knowledge-intensive Processes (KiP), characterized by a dynamic and unstable control-flow and complex activities that change frequently at run-time. This research proposes an approach based on the characterization of a KIP in terms of its interactions and the critical role of context during its execution. We argue that a detailed description about their precise conceptualization and how they influence or determine the execution of a KIP is still missing in the literature of this area. The analysis of the interactions that occur during the executions of the activities of a KiP, as well as their associated elements (such as context and speech acts), is vital to its correct understanding, modeling and execution.