Rights and Intentions in Value Modeling - Intentional Perspectives on Information Systems Engineering - page 198

3.2.5 Counts As
Counts as is a relationship between two logical systems in which an action, event
or concept in one system can be understood as another action, event or concept in
another system (taken from [ 12] , Sect. 3.1.4).
Figure 3 summarizes the relationships between actors, actions, joint actions,
communicative actions, social actions, and social relationships. In Sect. 3.3 the con-
cept “Counts as” is further modeled and analyzed in the context of how relationships
come into being and get their meaning within social structures.
Fig. 3 Actions and social relationships
3.3 Social Relationships
3.3.1 Social Relationship
A social relationship is an association between two or more actors, each of whom
plays a role in the relationship, that is defined in terms of the rights the actors have
in relation to each other.
A social relationship can only exist within the context of a social structure, as
it gets it meaning from that structure. For example, a purchase order (a social
relationship) is only meaningful within an organization and its surrounding legal
environment - if the organization ceases to exist, the purchase order does not have
any meaning. Our definition of social relationship can be seen as a specialization of
the notion of social fact in [ 12] .
A social relationship involves a number of actors that play different roles in the
relationship, for example there are husband and wife roles in a marriage, and buyer
and seller roles in a purchase order. A marriage (a social relationship) in one social
structure may include two roles: a husband role (male) and a wife role (female)
imposing different rights (or equal rights) on the two actors connected through
the marriage. In another social structure, a marriage may hold between two part-
ners independently of whether the partners are of different gender or not. Thus, the
meaning of a role is dependent on the social structure in which it exists.
3.3.2 Role
A role in a social relationship type is a set of rights that an actor playing that role
in a relationship has towards the other roles in the relationship (partially based on
[ 12] , Sect. 3.2.1) .