Enterprise Language Research Articles

Enterprise discourses in Dutch urban policies; a comparison between two cities in the Netherlands

ABSTRACT Local governments make use of ‘enterprise language’ to encourage citizens to adopt entrepreneurial behaviour in managing their daily lives and solving problems that emerge in their neighbourhood. In this paper, we examine the use of enterprise language and the promotion of enterprise in Dutch urban policy focusing specifically on how Dutch cities use enterprise language to influence and encourage their inhabitants to undertake entrepreneurial action. Our analysis shows how the language of enterprise helps cities to reinforce a local identity, to legitimize institutional change in local government functioning and to formulate expectations of how citizens (and professionals) should behave.

Enacting policies in digital health: a case for smart legal contracts and distributed ledgers?

Abstract This paper presents an approach for the enactment of policies in digital health based on our earlier work on the implementation of digital contracts in distributed systems. A formal policy model and an abstract policy language for the expression of healthcare policies are first proposed, leveraging the semantics of the ISO Reference Model for Open Distributed Processing enterprise language standard. Healthcare consent policies included in the HL7 Fast Health Interoperability Resource (FHIR®) standard are used to illustrate the modelling approach. Several distributed ledger and smart legal contract options were considered next as target platforms for implementation. Their benefits are highlighted along with considerations on their use reflecting business concerns of risk, trust and cost.

Articulating entrepreneurial competencies in the undergraduate curricular

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the level enterprise language is articulated within programme level documentation, and then, using EntreComp (Bacigalupo et al., 2016) as a framework, investigate the extent by which curricula is underpinned by enterprise competencies. Design/methodology/approach This study adopted a qualitative approach firstly through a desk analysis of undergraduate programme documentation across one UK University (n=60), followed by face-to-face interviews with programme leaders (n=25). Findings Findings revealed a lack of reference to enterprise in programme documentation as well as a confusion of the language associated with enterprise and entrepreneurship. However, all participants in the study were able to articulate opportunities afforded to students within the programme to practise entrepreneurial competencies from the EntreComp framework. Originality/value Whilst the limitation of this study is that it has been carried out in just one university, the practical implication of these findings provide supporting evidence that the EntreComp framework can be used to build a whole programme approach to embedding enterprise. This remains to be tested in future research. As the EntreComp framework is relatively new, then this piece of research is original as it is amongst the first to report on the framework.

An ontological analysis of the notion of community in the RM-ODP enterprise language

In our past work, we have shown that a number of theories from conceptual modeling and ontological analysis can be used to clarify the definitions of role-related and goal-related concepts in the RM-ODP [1,2]. This paper builds up on our earlier efforts by providing an ontology-based account for the notion of communities in the reference model's Enterprise Language [38]. We address issues regarding the composition of communities, the filling of roles in communities, the decomposition of a community's objective into sub-objectives (delegated to community members). The use of an ontology that deals with aspects of social reality and intentionality [30] plays an important role in this account, revealing the intentionality of communities and enterprise objects; the social relations between communities and enterprise objects in the community; the social relations between objects in the community; the social relations between communities; the normative character of a community's contract, etc. The analysis allows us to propose well-founded recommendations for clarifications and identify potential amendments to the standard as well as issues for further investigation.

Easing the development of healthcare architectures following RM-ODP principles and healthcare standards

RM-ODP has been widely accepted and used in the field of system and software model engineering and of enterprise computing within different environments. One of these specific domains is healthcare, in which the international standard Health Information Services Architecture (HISA) is applied under the directives of RM-ODP. HISA presents a flexible architecture identifying common use cases, actors, information, and services and easing its extension with specific services, systems and information. The HISA standard follows system specification through the RM-ODP viewpoints but it does not consider other features of the reference model, such as the Enterprise language or the UML4ODP specification.In this paper, we introduce the rationale and specification of the three technology-independent viewpoints of an HISA-based architecture conforming to RM-ODP and UML4ODP. Moreover, we evaluate how easy it is to extend this architecture to introduce specific services and elements. As proof of concept we explore security and privacy issues (i.e., requirements, actors, information objects, etc.) and enrich the architecture with suitable objects and services, mainly from access control standardization efforts. In addition, a detailed discussion about the divergences between RM-ODP and HISA is presented.The main contribution of our work is to develop (guided by RM-ODP, HISA, and other standards) a methodology and tools allowing healthcare service developers and designers to build solutions conforming to standards and leveraging the benefits of distribution and interoperability. These tools consist of the specification of three technology-independent viewpoints according to the guidelines of HISA, RM-ODP and UML4ODP for the healthcare domain, and they will be freely available. In parallel, these viewpoints are extended with access control issues, and the adequacy of the HISA extension mechanism is evaluated.

An RM-ODP enterprise view for spatial data infrastructures

Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDIs) are large, open, distributed and standards-based information systems which intend to facilitate and promote the use of spatial data and spatial services on the Internet. Spatial data describe information tied with locations on Earth, while spatial services allow to manipulate spatial data following a Service Oriented Architecture. This paper proposes to model SDIs as federations of autonomous communities following the enterprise language of the ITU-T and ISO/IEC ‘Reference Model of Open Distributed Processing’ (RM-ODP), and the recently approved ‘Use of UML for ODP Systems Specifications’ (UML4ODP). The enterprise language of the RM-ODP provides a conceptual foundation to address several aspects of SDIs not previously considered from a systems architecture point of view. The use of UML4ODP provides a modeling language to facilitate the exchange of knowledge about SDI, and it is an opportunity to try this recent standard for a class of large and complex systems.

Making the Rhetoric Real: perceptions of enterprise in educational contexts

Abstract A study involving 139 educationalists examined the thoughts and feelings experienced by individuals in relation to the enterprise language and the philosophical, historical and cultural values which were challenged by enterprise initiatives in education. The outcome indicated that change is initiated by discourse rather than rhetoric and that the enterprise language, having served its purpose in bringing process innovation in education from the periphery of the system to the centre, should become increasingly redundant.

Temporal levels: sociobiological aspects of a fundamental synthesis

The principles of a hierarchical theory of time are sketched and applied to problems in the study of biological and social structures. It has often been noted that the major integrative levels of nature, distinct in their degrees of complexity, are also distinct in the types of causation and lawfulness in terms of which they may be most efficiently discussed. It is proposed that time itself is so structured. Rather than a single one-way thrust in which the furnishings of the world equally partake, it is better understood as a hierarchy of temporalities appropriate to the different integrative levels. Methodologically, if we wish to identify the evolutionary policies that control the emergence of new stable structures and functions, we should regard the major steps in prebiotic and organic evolution as developmental stages of time itself, rather than steps within the framework of a pre-existing absolute time which ‘flows equably without relation to anything else’. This is an anti-intuitive stance whose value can be judged only in terms of its internal consistency and explanatory power. The theory is, therefore, tested. Biogenesis is interpreted as the coming about of autonomous clock aggregates which, in the course of evolution, complexify into the cyclic order of life, by filling the available niches in the spectrum of environmental periodicities. The aging order of life is seen as a boundary condition to the spectral spread of the cyclic order. Man emerges from this matrix through his ability for symbolic transformation of experience, which makes possible intraspecific selection for planning, memory and language. As a social enterprise language is carried along, as it were, by its inertia and dictates the forms of temporal structures within which social issues are expected to be formulated and social functions understood. The concluding remarks pertain to the epistemic status and critical testability of the theory.