In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in the development of ontologically well-f... more In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in the development of ontologically well-founded conceptual models for Information Systems in areas such as Service Management, Accounting Information Systems and Financial Reporting. Economic exchanges are central phenomena in these areas. For this reason, they occupy a prominent position in modelling frameworks such as the REA (Resource-Event Action) ISO Standard as well as the FIBO (Financial Industry Business Ontology). In this paper, we begin a well-founded ontological analysis of economic exchanges inspired by a recent ontological view on the nature of economic transactions. According to this view, what counts as an economic transaction is based on an agreement on the actions that the agents are committed to perform. The agreement is in turn based on convergent preferences about the course of action to bring about. This view enables a unified treatment of economic exchanges, regardless the object of the transaction, and co...
Business process modelling (BPM) notations describe processes using a graphical representation of... more Business process modelling (BPM) notations describe processes using a graphical representation of process-relevant entities and their interplay. Despite the wide literature on the comparison between different modelling languages, the BPM community still lacks an ontological characterisation of process constructs. Purpose of this paper is to start filling this gap by providing a first ontological analysis of the main business process entities. The analysis and the resulting characterisation aim at illustrating the different perspectives that BPM languages implicitly take on business processes, as well as guiding the modellers in making an appropriate choice when selecting among different notations.
The terms 'semantics' and 'ontology' are increasingly appearing together with 'explanation', not ... more The terms 'semantics' and 'ontology' are increasingly appearing together with 'explanation', not only in the scientific literature, but also in organizational communication. However, all of these terms are also being significantly overloaded. In this paper, we discuss their strong relation under particular interpretations. Specifically, we discuss a notion of explanation termed ontological unpacking, which aims at explaining symbolic domain descriptions (conceptual models, knowledge graphs, logical specifications) by revealing their ontological commitment in terms of their assumed truthmakers, i.e., the entities in one's ontology that make the propositions in those descriptions true. To illustrate this idea, we employ an ontological theory of relations to explain (by revealing the hidden semantics of) a very simple symbolic model encoded in the standard modeling language UML. We also discuss the essential role played by ontology-driven conceptual models (resulting from this form of explanation processes) in properly supporting semantic interoperability tasks. Finally, we discuss the relation between ontological unpacking and other forms of explanation in philosophy and science, as well as in the area of Artificial Intelligence.
We present in this paper a novel ontological theory of events whose central tenet is the Aristote... more We present in this paper a novel ontological theory of events whose central tenet is the Aristotelian distinction between the object that changes and the actual subject of change, which is what we call an individual quality. While in the Kimian tradition events are individuated by a triple ⟨ o , P , t ⟩, where o is an object, P a property, and t an interval of time, for us the simplest events are qualitative changes, individuated by a triple ⟨ o , q , t ⟩, where q is an individual quality inhering in o or in one of its parts. Detaching the individuation of events from the property they exemplify results in a fine-grained theory that keeps metaphysics and semantics clearly separate, and lies between the multiplicative and the unitarian approaches. We discuss then the way language refers to events, observing that, in most cases, event descriptions refer to complex, cognitively relevant clusters of co-occurring qualitative changes, which exhibit a synchronic structure depending on the ...
Over the last several years,services sciencehas emerged as an effective means to understand servi... more Over the last several years,services sciencehas emerged as an effective means to understand services and the socio-technical systems in which they are de- ployed. This systemic view requires a genuinely interdisciplinary approach to the study of services. In this chapter, we review a number of significant approaches to analyze, understand and model service systems, with an emphasis on showing sim- ilarities and differences that highlight the many aspects of a rich service ecosystem. The goal of this chapter is to provide developers with an overall perspective on such rich service system models, as a basis for choosing those which mostly fit their own needs.
It is widely recognized that accurately identifying and classifying competitors is a challenge fo... more It is widely recognized that accurately identifying and classifying competitors is a challenge for many companies and entrepreneurs. Nonetheless, it is a paramount activity which provide valuable insights that affect a wide range of strategic decisions. One of the main challenges in competitor identification lies in the complex nature of the competitive relationships that arise in business environments. These have been extensively investigate over the years, which lead to a plethora of competition theories and frameworks. Still, the concept of competition remains conceptually complex, as none of these approaches properly formalized their assumptions. In this paper, we address this issue by means of an ontological analysis on the notion of competition in general, and of business competition, in particular, leveraging theories from various fields, including Marketing, Strategic Management, Ecology, Psychology and Cognitive Sciences. Our analysis, the first of its kind in the literatur...
Under the concept of "Industry 4.0", production processes will be pushed to be increasingly inter... more Under the concept of "Industry 4.0", production processes will be pushed to be increasingly interconnected, information based on a real time basis and, necessarily, much more efficient. In this context, capacity optimization goes beyond the traditional aim of capacity maximization, contributing also for organization's profitability and value. Indeed, lean management and continuous improvement approaches suggest capacity optimization instead of maximization. The study of capacity optimization and costing models is an important research topic that deserves contributions from both the practical and theoretical perspectives. This paper presents and discusses a mathematical model for capacity management based on different costing models (ABC and TDABC). A generic model has been developed and it was used to analyze idle capacity and to design strategies towards the maximization of organization's value. The trade-off capacity maximization vs operational efficiency is highlighted and it is shown that capacity optimization might hide operational inefficiency.
In competitive markets, companies need well-designed business strategies if they seek to grow and... more In competitive markets, companies need well-designed business strategies if they seek to grow and obtain sustainable competitive advantage. At the core of a successful business strategy there is a carefully crafted value proposition, which ultimately defines what a company delivers to its customers. Despite their widely recognized importance, there is however little agreement on what exactly value propositions are. This lack of conceptual clarity harms the communication among stakeholders and the harmonization of current business strategy theories and strategy support frameworks. Furthermore, it hinders the development of systematic methodologies for crafting value propositions, as well as adequate support for representing and analyzing them. In this paper, we present an ontological analysis of value propositions based on a review of most relevant business and marketing theories and on previous work on value ascription, grounded in the Unified Foundational Ontology (UFO). Our investigation clarifies how value propositions are different from value presentations, and shows the difference between value propositions at the business level from those related to specific offerings.
Formalizing the ontological commitment of a logical language means offering a way to specify the ... more Formalizing the ontological commitment of a logical language means offering a way to specify the intended meaning of its vocabulary by constraining the set of its models, giving explicit information about the intended nature of the modelling primitives and their a priori relationships. We present here a formal definition of ontological commitment which aims to capture the very basic ontological assumptions about the intended domain, related to issues such as identity and internal structure. To tackle such issues, a modal framework endowed with mereo-topological primitives has been adopted. The paper is mostly based on a revisitation of philosophical (and linguistic) literature in the perspective of knowledge representation. 1 Introduction First order logic is notoriously neutral with respect to ontological choices: when a logical language is used with the purpose of modelling a particular aspect of reality, the set M of all its models is usually much larger than the set M i of the i...
In several subject domains, the categorization scheme itself is part of the subject matter. In th... more In several subject domains, the categorization scheme itself is part of the subject matter. In these subject domains, experts make use of categories of categories in their accounts. This has led to a number of approaches in conceptual mod-eling and knowledge representation that are called multi-level modeling approaches. An early approach for multi-level modeling is the powertype pattern which introduces " power types " and " base types ". More recently, other proposals for multi-level modeling include " clabjects " , " m-objects " , which admit the existence of entities, which are somehow, simultaneously, types (classes) and instances (usually associated to objects). Regardless of the choice of approach to perform multi-level modelling, a question remains concerning the ontological status of " base types " , " power types " and " clabjects ". This paper aims to address this gap through an ontological analysis. We...
We present a novel definition of services (in particular, public services) which sees each of the... more We present a novel definition of services (in particular, public services) which sees each of them as the sum of all activities that realize a public authority's commitment to make available to individuals, businesses, or other public authorities some capabilities intended to answer their needs, giving them some possibilities to control how and when such capabilities should be manifested.
In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in the development of ontologically well-f... more In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in the development of ontologically well-founded conceptual models for Information Systems in areas such as Service Management, Accounting Information Systems and Financial Reporting. Economic exchanges are central phenomena in these areas. For this reason, they occupy a prominent position in modelling frameworks such as the REA (Resource-Event Action) ISO Standard as well as the FIBO (Financial Industry Business Ontology). In this paper, we begin a well-founded ontological analysis of economic exchanges inspired by a recent ontological view on the nature of economic transactions. According to this view, what counts as an economic transaction is based on an agreement on the actions that the agents are committed to perform. The agreement is in turn based on convergent preferences about the course of action to bring about. This view enables a unified treatment of economic exchanges, regardless the object of the transaction, and co...
Business process modelling (BPM) notations describe processes using a graphical representation of... more Business process modelling (BPM) notations describe processes using a graphical representation of process-relevant entities and their interplay. Despite the wide literature on the comparison between different modelling languages, the BPM community still lacks an ontological characterisation of process constructs. Purpose of this paper is to start filling this gap by providing a first ontological analysis of the main business process entities. The analysis and the resulting characterisation aim at illustrating the different perspectives that BPM languages implicitly take on business processes, as well as guiding the modellers in making an appropriate choice when selecting among different notations.
The terms 'semantics' and 'ontology' are increasingly appearing together with 'explanation', not ... more The terms 'semantics' and 'ontology' are increasingly appearing together with 'explanation', not only in the scientific literature, but also in organizational communication. However, all of these terms are also being significantly overloaded. In this paper, we discuss their strong relation under particular interpretations. Specifically, we discuss a notion of explanation termed ontological unpacking, which aims at explaining symbolic domain descriptions (conceptual models, knowledge graphs, logical specifications) by revealing their ontological commitment in terms of their assumed truthmakers, i.e., the entities in one's ontology that make the propositions in those descriptions true. To illustrate this idea, we employ an ontological theory of relations to explain (by revealing the hidden semantics of) a very simple symbolic model encoded in the standard modeling language UML. We also discuss the essential role played by ontology-driven conceptual models (resulting from this form of explanation processes) in properly supporting semantic interoperability tasks. Finally, we discuss the relation between ontological unpacking and other forms of explanation in philosophy and science, as well as in the area of Artificial Intelligence.
We present in this paper a novel ontological theory of events whose central tenet is the Aristote... more We present in this paper a novel ontological theory of events whose central tenet is the Aristotelian distinction between the object that changes and the actual subject of change, which is what we call an individual quality. While in the Kimian tradition events are individuated by a triple ⟨ o , P , t ⟩, where o is an object, P a property, and t an interval of time, for us the simplest events are qualitative changes, individuated by a triple ⟨ o , q , t ⟩, where q is an individual quality inhering in o or in one of its parts. Detaching the individuation of events from the property they exemplify results in a fine-grained theory that keeps metaphysics and semantics clearly separate, and lies between the multiplicative and the unitarian approaches. We discuss then the way language refers to events, observing that, in most cases, event descriptions refer to complex, cognitively relevant clusters of co-occurring qualitative changes, which exhibit a synchronic structure depending on the ...
Over the last several years,services sciencehas emerged as an effective means to understand servi... more Over the last several years,services sciencehas emerged as an effective means to understand services and the socio-technical systems in which they are de- ployed. This systemic view requires a genuinely interdisciplinary approach to the study of services. In this chapter, we review a number of significant approaches to analyze, understand and model service systems, with an emphasis on showing sim- ilarities and differences that highlight the many aspects of a rich service ecosystem. The goal of this chapter is to provide developers with an overall perspective on such rich service system models, as a basis for choosing those which mostly fit their own needs.
It is widely recognized that accurately identifying and classifying competitors is a challenge fo... more It is widely recognized that accurately identifying and classifying competitors is a challenge for many companies and entrepreneurs. Nonetheless, it is a paramount activity which provide valuable insights that affect a wide range of strategic decisions. One of the main challenges in competitor identification lies in the complex nature of the competitive relationships that arise in business environments. These have been extensively investigate over the years, which lead to a plethora of competition theories and frameworks. Still, the concept of competition remains conceptually complex, as none of these approaches properly formalized their assumptions. In this paper, we address this issue by means of an ontological analysis on the notion of competition in general, and of business competition, in particular, leveraging theories from various fields, including Marketing, Strategic Management, Ecology, Psychology and Cognitive Sciences. Our analysis, the first of its kind in the literatur...
Under the concept of "Industry 4.0", production processes will be pushed to be increasingly inter... more Under the concept of "Industry 4.0", production processes will be pushed to be increasingly interconnected, information based on a real time basis and, necessarily, much more efficient. In this context, capacity optimization goes beyond the traditional aim of capacity maximization, contributing also for organization's profitability and value. Indeed, lean management and continuous improvement approaches suggest capacity optimization instead of maximization. The study of capacity optimization and costing models is an important research topic that deserves contributions from both the practical and theoretical perspectives. This paper presents and discusses a mathematical model for capacity management based on different costing models (ABC and TDABC). A generic model has been developed and it was used to analyze idle capacity and to design strategies towards the maximization of organization's value. The trade-off capacity maximization vs operational efficiency is highlighted and it is shown that capacity optimization might hide operational inefficiency.
In competitive markets, companies need well-designed business strategies if they seek to grow and... more In competitive markets, companies need well-designed business strategies if they seek to grow and obtain sustainable competitive advantage. At the core of a successful business strategy there is a carefully crafted value proposition, which ultimately defines what a company delivers to its customers. Despite their widely recognized importance, there is however little agreement on what exactly value propositions are. This lack of conceptual clarity harms the communication among stakeholders and the harmonization of current business strategy theories and strategy support frameworks. Furthermore, it hinders the development of systematic methodologies for crafting value propositions, as well as adequate support for representing and analyzing them. In this paper, we present an ontological analysis of value propositions based on a review of most relevant business and marketing theories and on previous work on value ascription, grounded in the Unified Foundational Ontology (UFO). Our investigation clarifies how value propositions are different from value presentations, and shows the difference between value propositions at the business level from those related to specific offerings.
Formalizing the ontological commitment of a logical language means offering a way to specify the ... more Formalizing the ontological commitment of a logical language means offering a way to specify the intended meaning of its vocabulary by constraining the set of its models, giving explicit information about the intended nature of the modelling primitives and their a priori relationships. We present here a formal definition of ontological commitment which aims to capture the very basic ontological assumptions about the intended domain, related to issues such as identity and internal structure. To tackle such issues, a modal framework endowed with mereo-topological primitives has been adopted. The paper is mostly based on a revisitation of philosophical (and linguistic) literature in the perspective of knowledge representation. 1 Introduction First order logic is notoriously neutral with respect to ontological choices: when a logical language is used with the purpose of modelling a particular aspect of reality, the set M of all its models is usually much larger than the set M i of the i...
In several subject domains, the categorization scheme itself is part of the subject matter. In th... more In several subject domains, the categorization scheme itself is part of the subject matter. In these subject domains, experts make use of categories of categories in their accounts. This has led to a number of approaches in conceptual mod-eling and knowledge representation that are called multi-level modeling approaches. An early approach for multi-level modeling is the powertype pattern which introduces " power types " and " base types ". More recently, other proposals for multi-level modeling include " clabjects " , " m-objects " , which admit the existence of entities, which are somehow, simultaneously, types (classes) and instances (usually associated to objects). Regardless of the choice of approach to perform multi-level modelling, a question remains concerning the ontological status of " base types " , " power types " and " clabjects ". This paper aims to address this gap through an ontological analysis. We...
We present a novel definition of services (in particular, public services) which sees each of the... more We present a novel definition of services (in particular, public services) which sees each of them as the sum of all activities that realize a public authority's commitment to make available to individuals, businesses, or other public authorities some capabilities intended to answer their needs, giving them some possibilities to control how and when such capabilities should be manifested.
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Papers by Nicola Guarino