دانلود رایگان مقاله مدل سازی فرایند تجارت و چشم انداز سیستم اطلاعات حسابداری

Countless definitions of the term business process can be found in the literature (Lindsay et al., 2003), with the following being one of the most cited: “A business process is a collection of activities that takes one or more kinds of input and creates an output that is of value to the customer” (Hammer and Champy, 1993). Their definition emphasizes the transformation and value-added nature of business processes. For this special issue, and thus this editorial, we adhere to the broadest possible interpretation of the term business process. A model is a simplified representation or abstraction of a part of the world, and a business process model is therefore a simplified representation of a business process. Again, for simplicity purposes, we adhere to the broadest possible interpretation of the term business process model. For example, and we fully understand that this is an over-simplification (Henderson-Sellers, 2011), we consider an instantiation of an enterprise ontology as a special type of business process model. The business process modeling (BPM) research landscape is vast and complex, and this is primarily due to the wide variety of uses of such models and the different angles from which the research is conducted. Consider just the following: representation of as-is models, validation of as-is models, grounding of BPM grammars in terms of upper-level ontologies, representations of business processes that enable assessment (such as calculating time and cost), representation of to-be business processes for analysis and simulation purposes, translation between business process model notations for different uses, and specifications for the development and implementation of IT systems. These are all topics that are part of the BPM research landscape, and an in-depth analysis and structuring of such a vast area is beyond the scope of this editorial. However, Fig. 1 sketches a framework that allows us to (1) identify some of the research streams in this area, and (2) position the four papers that are part of this special issue. The remainder of this editorial is organized as follows. Next, we briefly discuss the three main components of Fig. 1: (1) definition of business process models at different levels of abstraction, (2) intra-layer research, and (3) inter-layer research. We then discuss the BPM research landscape from an accounting information systems (AIS) perspective. Finally, we briefly discuss the four papers that are part of this special issue and their contribution to the AIS literature.

5. Contributions to the special issue In this section we summarize the four papers that are part of this special issue on BPM and we position each of them in terms of the framework presented in Fig. 1—type of research—and in terms of the research landscape presented in Table 1—research contribution. Heidari and Loucopoulos (2013-in this issue) present a quality evaluation framework that enables assessing business process quality through their models. They present a structured approach of assessing the quality of business processes (M1) starting from a framework that consists of a quality metamodel (M2) and a method for applying it (M2/1). In addition, they define an extensive set of applicable quality factors as well as corresponding quality metrics that can be applied to business process models defined in any notation (M2/1). They further demonstrate the use of their framework by means of an example (M1/0). Their paper is not about how to present business processes with a BPML but instead about the development of a grammar that enables quality analysis of business processes. In Table 1, we characterize their research contribution as a BPM application (#2): use of business process models as part of a structured approach to assess business process quality.