College of Business and

Economics
Department of MBA
BUSINESS PROCESS MODELLING: A
COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

ARTICLE REVIEW

Prepared By Habtamu Kefale

Submitted to
BUSINESS PROCESS MODELLING: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS
ARTICLE REVIEW

I. SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE

This paper comparatively assesses representational analyses of 12 popular process modelling
techniques in order to provide insights into the extent to which they differ from each other.
The researchers discuss several implications of their findings. Their analysis uncovers and
explores representational root causes for a number of shortcomings that remain in process
modelling practice, such as lack of process decomposition and integration of business rule
specification. The researchers’ findings also serve as motivation and input to future research
in areas such as context-aware business process design and conventions management.
The specific objectives of the article are:
 To analyse the performance of process modelling techniques in light of representation
theory.
 To identify the common concepts and key differentiators of leading process modelling
techniques, measured by their levels of ontological completeness and clarity as based
on the representation theory.
 To identify the key implications and the lessons that can be learned from the
representational analysis of leading process modelling techniques for the modelling of
business processes.
For empirical papers the study was used both quantitative and qualitative data types. For
instance, the study was used descriptions like “Green and Roseanne (2000) used the BWW
model to analyse the Event-driven Process Chain (EPC) notation (Scheer, 2000), assessing
both ontological completeness and clarity.” which is presented in qualitative data type. On
the other hand, the study also presented a figure of potential representational deficiencies of a
modelling technique which is described by quantitative data type.
The process of using the BWW model as a reference benchmark for the evaluation of the
representational capabilities of a modelling technique forms the core of the research method
of representational analysis. Representational analysis can be used to make predictions of the
modelling strengths and weaknesses of the technique, viz., its capabilities to provide
complete and clear descriptions of the domain being modelled. In this process, the constructs
of the BWW representation model (e.g., thing, event, transformation) are compared with the
June 2019
language constructs of the modelling technique (e.g., event, activity, actor) in a bi-directional
mapping. Wolkite,
Ethiopia
The findings show the common core constructs of process modelling techniques (for
example, transformation, properties, events) as well as their key differentiators (for example,
subsystem, system environment, lawful state space). The findings also allow for conclusions
to be drawn about the signs of representational “goodness,” as measured by the degrees of
completeness, excess, overload and redundancy of process modelling techniques.

The outcomes of this study can be of interest to both developers and users of process
modelling techniques. Developers should be motivated to examine representational analyses
of existing process modelling techniques in order to build upon these techniques and mitigate
any weaknesses in newly developed or extended techniques. The results will also motivate
users to consider ontological completeness and ontological clarity as potential evaluation
criteria for the selection of an appropriate modelling technique.
II. EVALUATION OF THE ARTICLE
The paper discussed representational theory as justified by the researchers in the following
paragraphs.
“Representation theory (e.g., Weber, 1997) was developed by Wand and Weber as an
adaptation of an ontology proposed by Bunge (1977). The theory suggests a model of
representation, known as the Bunge-Wand-Weber (BWW) representation model (Wand and
Weber, 1990; 1993; 1995), as a benchmark for the evaluation of the representational
capabilities of a modelling technique in the Information Systems domain. In this paper we
employ this model and the associated principles of representational analysis to
comparatively assess 12 popular process modelling techniques.”
The researchers argued to accept the representational theory. The study in general contributes
theory that assist in differentiating the process modelling techniques from each other based
on representational analysis.
The researchers argued to logically favour why they select representational theory analysis in
the following manner and I think I support their argument.
 Many business process modelling techniques have been proposed over the last
decades.
 This creates a demand for theory to assist in the comparison and evaluation of these
techniques.
 A widely established way of determining the effectiveness and efficiency of
modelling techniques is by way of representational analysis.
 Therefore, representational analysis is used in the study.
Their core argument is that BPM techniques need to be compared and evaluated based on
some kind of representational theory analysis for establishing the differences among the
techniques.
The researchers correctly reconcile the theory and evidence found in the paper as illustrated
in their description quoted under.
“Our findings suggest that the most recent process modelling techniques provide a rather
wide scope of coverage, indicated by their high degrees of completeness. This finding
suggests that the effectiveness and application of process modelling techniques, and process
modelling, overall, has been increasing over time and will hopefully continue to do so in
future generations of modelling techniques. Regarding the level of efficiency of process
modelling , however, it appears that the discipline is heading toward a widened scope of
coverage that induces increased modelling complexity, as indicated by the high degrees of
overload, excess, and redundancy of more recent techniques such as BPML or BPMN (see
Table 5). For example, the upward trend of construct redundancy from EPCs to ebXML, WS-
BPEL, WSCI and BPMN (see Table 5) points to a design trend that is based on technique
extension rather than revision or deletion of language constructs. A recent interview with the
design team of the BPMN technique supports this proposition – the BPMN developers stated
specifically that it is far more common to add constructs in technique revisions than it is to
delete or replace those (Recker et al., 2007a). Our findings can be used to guide modelling
technique developers in their design efforts, as they provide a theoretical base from which
relevant design principles can be drawn. Developers can potentially counteract the indicated
trend toward technique complexity while still enabling sufficient domain coverage.”
III. INSIGHT OF THE ARTICLE TO MY COURSE
This article advances my thinking in entrepreneurship and innovation in my opinion.
On the basis of this article, I differentiate entrepreneurship and innovation as follows.
Entrepreneurship is the process of designing, launching and running a new business, which
is often initially a small business. Thus the article can empower the entrepreneur with the
popular business models which are well compared and can easily be selected based on the
nature of the business. On the other hand, innovation is the use of new ideas and methods.
New business ideas have to be implemented considering they are capable of being practical.
What business process model should be used then? The article can give the innovator the
same insight since it simplifies her homework.
So on the basis of the article, entrepreneurship is using the best business process model to
enter to existing or new business; while innovation is to appropriately select and use the best
fitting business process model to implement the new business idea.

IV. STRENGTHS & WEAKNESS OF THE ARTICLE

Strengths of the argument
The paper has a logical flow of reasons that reach to the conclusion. It selects popular
business process models. It identifies the gap i.e. the need for theory. Then it selects the
analysis method which it assumes best.
Weaknesses of the argument
The researchers agreed that the cognitive aspects need to be taken into consideration when
seeking to examine the effects of lack of ontological completeness or clarity on a user
working with a modelling technique. So why don’t they consider the cognitive aspect as long
as they are aware of the limitation. I thought this is the weakness of the paper.