Rights and Intentions in Value Modeling - Intentional Perspectives on Information Systems Engineering - page 195

defined in terms of the rights they include. Based on these notions, value exchanges
will be modeled as a combination of actions that modify social relationships as
well as physical states. The starting point of the model is the OASIS [12] Reference
Foundation Architecture for Service Oriented Architecture, which aims at providing
a common language for understanding SOA as well as addressing issues involved
in constructing, using and owning an SOA-based system. We have chosen this
architecture as a basis, since it provides an established foundation for many of the
concepts needed to analyze the meaning of value models.
3.1 Actors and Social Structures
3.1.1 Actor
An actor is an entity, human, non-human or organization of entities, that is capable
of action (taken from [ 12] , Sect. 3.1.1) .
The main characteristic of an actor is its ability to take action, which means that
an actor can be a human, an organization or even a computational agent. It is not
required that an actor be responsible for its actions, as this only pertains to legal
entities. Actors, as almost all concepts in the value context model, may exist on
a knowledge level as well as on an operational level. According to [ 4] the opera-
tional level models concrete, tangible individuals in a domain, while the knowledge
level models information structures that characterize categories of individuals on
the operational level. The value context model hence distinguishes between actor
types (categories of actors like lawyer, barrister, and teacher) and actors (specific
and often tangible concepts like a concrete person).
Actors may be associated to each other through relationships. A relationship may
occur spontaneously between two or more humans, as in a friendship. However,
many relationships can only occur and exist within the context of some pre-existing
social structure. For example, a marriage can only exist within some legal system of
a state, and a job position is only meaningful in the context of some organization. In
this way, social structures provide a frame or context within which relationships can
exist and be meaningful. A relationship typically has different meanings in different
social structures, for example a marriage may impose different rights and obliga-
tions on the involved actors depending on the social structure in which it exists.
Examples of social structures are a company, an association, an NGO, a country,
and an international organization.
3.1.2 Social Structure
A social structure is a relationship created by a set of actors with the purpose of gov-
erning some of their existing and future relationships. A social structure embodies
some of the cultural aspects that characterize the relationships and actions among a
group of actors (partially based on [ 12] , Sect. 3.2) .