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The theory of this paper, that logical databases work because they store institutional
facts, leads to the conclusion that interoperability using logical database technology is
only possible if the interoperating sites share speech acts and consequently share in the
creation of institutional facts. In particular, they must have sufficient shared culture so
that the background is sufficiently uniform. (For another view of this issue, see Colomb,
1997.) Some of the kinds of situations where this condition is satisfied include:
1. The sites do business together. This is what Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is all
about. For example, a group of businesses agree on common terms and common
business messages with agreed semantics, and can then buy and sell from each
other by the interoperation of their respective purchasing and order entry systems.
E-commerce exchanges are built on this basis. The agreement on common terms
and common business messages with agreed semantics constitutes the synchronisa-
tion of the framing rules for speech acts, so that the interoperation can make speech
acts and there is an agreed semantics for the consequent institutional facts. The
agreement is a transcendent ontology, supported by a common background. The
ontology is transcendent because the only way to change the common world is to
change the ontology, which is done by the management body outside of the routine
interoperation of the sites.
2. All sites report to a central body using a common ontology. Tax returns in a given
jurisdiction or financial reports to a given stock exchange are examples. The common
ontology is the set of regulations and accounting standards established by the tax
office or stock exchange and enforced by auditors and the commercial law institu-
tions. This ontology is generally transcendent because it is imposed by the central
body, and the participation in the relationship with the central body gives aspects
of common culture so there is a stable background.
3. All sites operate as small players in a dense market. An example is residential
property sales in a particular city. There are many agents, many sellers and many
buyers, and each has the choice to deal with many of the others. In these markets,
conventions develop so that to do business one must do it pretty well the way
everyone else does. The speech acts and consequent institutional facts are similar
by convention rather than by agreement. Any innovation either dies out quickly
or is quickly adopted by everyone else due to competitive pressure. Here, the on-
tology is not transcendent, but immanent, derived from patterns in the background.
It is possible to build, for example, services that will search for a house in many
agents' sites. There are many ways to do this requiring more or less cooperation
among the players. An immanent ontology is unstable in that a player may innovate
at will, and that innovation may take off unpredictably. Background is the critical
factor in this situation.
Unless there is some reason to assume the interoperating sites share institutional facts,
there is no reason to think that interoperability using logical database technology is
possible.
How can we build on this?
Our theory leads us to expect that we can build interorganisational information systems
using logical database technology, enabling interoperation among organisations that
share institutional facts. The sharing of institutional facts is represented by the parti-
cipants' commitment to a common ontology. This ontology can be either transcendent
or immanent. The question now is: given that we can interoperate where can we then
go?
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