Ontology-Driven Business Modelling: Improving the Conceptual Representation of the REA Ontology

Business modelling research is increasingly interested in exploring how domain ontologies can be used as reference models for business models. The Resource Event Agent (REA) ontology is a primary candidate for ontology-driven modelling of business processes because the REA point of view on business reality is close to the conceptual modelling perspective on business models. In this paper Ontology Engineering principles are employed to reengineer REA in order to make it more suitable for ontology-driven business modelling. The new conceptual representation of REA that we propose uses a single representation formalism, includes a more complete domain axiomatization (containing definitions of concepts, concept relations and ontological axioms), and is proposed as a generic model that can be instantiated to create valid business models. The effects of these proposed improvements on REAdriven business modelling are demonstrated using a business modelling example.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2007
• Where: ER
• Authors: Frederik Gailly, Geert Poels
• Keywords: Business, Business Models, ER 2007, Modelling