=Paper= {{Paper |id=Vol-1357/paper3 |storemode=property |title=Value Activity Monitoring |pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1357/paper3.pdf |volume=Vol-1357 |dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/websci/SilvaWB13 }} ==Value Activity Monitoring== https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1357/paper3.pdf
                          Value Activity Monitoring

            Patrício de Alencar Silva, Hans Weigand and Faiza Allah Bukhsh

                            Department of Information Management
                              Tilburg University, P.O. Box 90.153
                                5000LE Tilburg, The Netherlands
                     {p.silva, h.weigand, f.a.bukhsh}@tilburguniversity.nl



       Abstract. Value constellations are business ecosystems, where multiple actors
       communicate in economic, legal, information and social affairs. How to
       monitor such a system demands viewpoint and view-dependent strategies. The
       problem treated and reported here is how to monitor a value activity. The
       mechanism proposed to address this problem, so-called Value Activity
       Monitoring, is based on an ontology of same name, which is the core
       contribution of this paper. The artifact is designed and validated from a Design
       Science perspective. More specifically, the artifact evaluation has been
       conducted via application in real-world business cases. Previous evaluations
       include applications in the sectors of Renewable Energy and Intellectual
       Property Rights. Now, new problems are provided by a case from the Customs
       Control (Business-to-Government) sector. From that, the challenge is to
       reconcile monitoring costs and reliability. In return, it is demonstrated how the
       proposed artifact can be used to derive potentially effective and efficiency
       monitoring strategies for value activities, which comprises the main results of
       this research.
       Keywords: Communication Action Perspective, Customs Control, Ontology,
       Value Activity, Value Constellations.



1 Introduction

Value constellations are usually referred to as a system of actors exchanging objects
of economic value so as to satisfy a consumer’s need [1]. Although necessary, the
economic aspect is not sufficient to capture real-world business problems. These often
come up as crossover of economic, legal, organizational and information systems
aspects, altogether glued and blurred by communication action ones. Such a cloud of
aspects would constitute an evolving definition of value constellation, which is much
closer to practice than its predecessor, and therefore, adopted here as a starting point
of discussion.
    The umbrella research problem considered here is the one of how to monitor a
value constellation. Such a problem has been treated by levels, both from a
constellation viewpoint [2] and from a transactional one [3]. This time, the problem
shifts to how to monitor a value activity. More specifically, the viewpoint considered
is the one of a critical value activity nourishing an entire value constellation. Truly, it
makes sense to realize that, if the monitoring of such an activity is not scrutinized, the




                                              19
monitoring of its corresponding nourished constellation may become inefficient, if not
ineffective.
    In order to solve such a problem, a Design Science perspective is adopted [4].
Related research has been carried out on the value constellation problem [5].
Nonetheless, the focus there is on the controlling mechanisms for value constellations,
which places monitoring as a mere delegation pattern. Such a treatment is not
sufficient to cope with demands from essentially monitoring business cases.
Moreover, the monitoring of a value constellation, as well as its encompassed
transactions and activities, gives rise to a plethora of new research questions. Among
them, the one of how to monitor a value activity figures out as one of practical
relevance [6] for at least three reasons. Firstly, it represents an attempt to achieve or
explore new requirements on monitoring as a business in its own. Second, it also
represents an attempt to optimize how this type of business is currently done. An other
important consideration is, that it represents an attempt to furnish business analysts
with a proper viewpoint on service monitoring, which is often relegated as a process-
level or IT-level concern, instead of strategic one, on a first instance analysis.
    The mechanism proposed to solve the corresponding problem, so-called Value
Activity Monitoring, is based on an aspect Ontology of same name, which blends
Economic, Legal, Organization and Information Systems requirements with elements
from the Communication Action Perspective. The artifact has been previously
evaluated through cases in Renewable Energy [3] and Intellectual Property Rights [2],
for the sake of refinement and evolution of its own conceptual fitness. This time, it is
applied to a case in Customs Control, which brings new requirements on the
monitoring of value constellations. Here, the specific problem is how to reconcile cost
and reliability on monitoring a value constellation. As a return, it is demonstrated
how the artifact proposed can be used so as to derive potentially effective and
efficient monitoring strategies. This is achieved by slightly shifting the monitoring
focus from the global perspective of the entire constellation to the point of its
corresponding nourishing (critical) value activity.
    The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 provides a theoretical
background that provides reasons for monitoring value constellations from an activity
viewpoint and which and how monitoring aspects were blended on the building of the
proposed artifact. In Section 3, the candidate ontology is presented in detail, along
with its proper internal views. In Section 4, the utility of the artifact is evaluated on
the Customs Control business case. Finally, Section 5 provides some discussion and
immediate research outlook.


2 Theoretical Background

As the problem of how to monitor a value constellation can be very open and
complex, it is worth to set some assumptions and rationale on system viewpoints and
views, for the sake of simplification and tractability.




                                           20
2.1 Monitoring Viewpoints in Value Constellations

Monitoring is part of a bigger picture on managing value constellations [7].
According to this perspective, the modeling and configuration of a value
constellation, on the business strategy viewpoint, consists of a prelude for configuring
value-adding business processes and underlying IT services. The original concept
proposed monitoring as an essentially process-oriented to IT services-oriented
problem. However, as part this research, further guidelines have been provided in
terms of treating monitoring also as a business strategy problem [8]. From that point
and on, the challenge has been on injecting monitoring information in the value
models, so as to align monitoring requirements from the business strategy viewpoint
to the corresponding back-end business processes and IT services.
    In [3], the first version of the artifact presented here has been proposed. The so-
called Enterprise Monitoring Ontology had the problem of how to monitor a value
constellation from a global perspective. The dominant aspect of the monitoring was
still the economic one. Some elements of the Communication Action Perspective
were borrowed from a companion theory, the Enterprise Ontology [9]. The resulting
candidate ontology had received significant input in terms of elements of practice of a
case in Renewable Energy. The challenge provided by that was the one of how to
monitor a value constellation in Renewable Energy. More specifically, it was focused
on how to reconcile the cost of monitoring with availability issues related to the
intermittent production of the renewable energy. Moreover, assumptions on data
privacy and security were also considered. As a macro-context, the corresponding
business market is highly liberalized, with decentralized management. The resulting
ontology had a peer-to-peer accent on deriving monitoring strategies from and to the
value constellation. The main logic was to build up a monitoring constellation as a
tourniquet to support critical value transactions.
    In [2], the second version of the artifact has included explicit Communication Action
guidelines which were provided no more from the companion theory [9], but from
literature on Language and Communication Action [21]. Past limitations encountered on
the case application reported in [3] have been considered. Moreover, a case on
Intellectual Property Rights provided new elements of practice and challenges for
monitoring value constellations in that type of market. More specifically, the case
problem was the one of how to monitor a value constellation in the Digital Music
Industry. The main challenge comprised to reconcile the cost of monitoring with the
trust assumptions on the behavior of the partners involved in collaboration. As a macro-
context, the corresponding business market is also liberalized, but the main monitoring
stakeholders – the Intellectual Property Rights Societies – are government-appointed
authorities, with limited monitoring resources but strong controlling capabilities over
the context they operate. The resulting ontology had an applicability focus on
monitoring value transactions, leaving the global aspect on a second plane, for the sake
of economic fitness. The idea of building a monitoring constellation to support a critical
value transaction (e.g. an untrusted one) remained intact.
    Finally, new challenges have been identified for evolving the ontology presented in
[2] and [3]. These come from a new real-world business case in Customs Control. The
specific monitoring problem now is how to reconcile monitoring costs with
monitoring reliability. This type of market comprises typically Business-to-




                                           21
Government transactions, which pose new demands in terms of coordination and
organization requirements. The core challenge here seems to be no more the one of
building monitoring constellations as tourniquets for critical value transactions, but
the one of monitoring an entire value constellation from a monitoring chokepoint, i.e.
the final consumer’s activity – the one played by the Government, as a final consumer
of monitoring information.


2.2 Monitoring Views in Value Constellations

As stated before, a value constellation encompasses many collaborative aspects other
than purely economic ones. These include Legal, Information Systems and
Organizational Aspects. It is worth to highlight which specific aspects of each of
these disciplines are considered here, as well as how and why they are blended on
producing the artifact proposed here.
   Economic Aspects: the e3value framework [1], which provides the value
constellation modeling support considered here, is essentially an economically-driven
one. There, the implicit (but shared) value modeling rationale is the one maximizing
individual profitability. However, some other aspects ought to be considered to
complement such a perspective. For instance, for the sake of sustainability, a value
constellation should be specified in such a way so as to minimize future adaptation.
This is called Robust Mechanism Design [10]. Another aspect comprises the premise
that value cannot be transferred, but only co-created. Besides, the valuation activity, if
any, is private, idiosyncratic and experimental. These aspects comprise fundamental
principles of the Service-Dominant Logic [11].
   Legal Aspects: although value constellations can be self-regulated, i.e. with actors
applying regulating actions towards one another, certain markets have their own
regulative bodies, performing a proper set of value creation activities. These in turn
also produce corresponding proper value objects, e.g. accreditations and regulations
as value objects [12]. Actually, such regulative elements can also constitute a market
apart. Moreover, regulative bodies often work as controllers of public information
access and disclosure, in collaborative assets [13].
   Information Systems Aspects: the Robust Mechanism Design also finds a parallel
in the Information Systems field – the Computational Mechanism Design [16]. Such a
paradigm provides different types of upper-level goals, which can be translated into
business value needs (in e3value terms). These needs comprise possible rationales of
value actors, for instance: (1) maximized individual utility; (2) maximized social
welfare; and (3) budget balance. Another relevant paradigm, source of Information
Systems-related monitoring aspects is the Complex Event Processing (CEP) [14].
This can provide monitoring stereotypes for value activities, such as production,
consumption and transformation monitoring activities (e.g. aggregation, filtering,
selection, publication). Yet, the Role-Based Access Control model (RBAC) [15] also
provides guidance that can be adapted so as to describe a semantics for value
transactions, in terms of which value actor plays which role according to a subset of
operations (e.g. value activities) that changes objects (e.g. value objects).
   Organizational Aspects: on top the previous aspects, some governance guidelines
can also be employed on organizing a value web and its monitoring. A typology of




                                           22
theories on organization and management is provided in [17]. Among them, the
Agency Theory [18] appears as the one appropriate to be used in scenarios where the
monitoring information can be modeled as a purchasable commodity. Such a premise
gives rise to the idea of exploring and modeling monitoring as an economy of scale,
i.e. as a value constellation in its own domain, amenable to sustainability analysis.
    Communication Action Aspects: finally, pervasive to all the previously
mentioned aspects is the communication one. This aspect can work as a sort of “glue”
to be placed among the other ones. The idea that rational actors engage on
communication acts of production and coordination is not new [19-20]. Such acts can
be articulated in such a way for a rational actor to achieve his individual goals. The
Enterprise Ontology [9] has referred to the production acts as the objective world,
whereas to the coordination acts, as the social world. These aspects are somewhat
reified in the e3value framework in terms of value activities and value exchanges,
respectively. However, both Enterprise Ontology and e3value somehow neglects
treatment on the subjective world aspect, addressed by Allwood [21]. This world
encompasses a third-level class of acts, so-called apprehension and display acts,
which can be used to modify how the other types of acts are performed.
    Altogether, these aspects were blended so as to produce the artifact proposed here.
The main rationale for blending disparate theories towards producing a new one is
that such an endeavor represents an opportunity for phenomenological problem
exploitation (such as monitoring value constellations), as well as its potential for
innovation [22].


3 Value Activity Monitoring Ontology

The artifact proposed to solve the problem of how to monitor a value constellation
from a value activity point of view is the so-called Value Activity Monitoring
Ontology (hereafter, VAMO). The ontology has been built according to an Ontology
Engineering methodology [23], with special focus on practical application. The
candidate ontology is referred here as an “Aspect Ontology”, which differs from the
types of ontology proposed by Guarino [24]. It is organized along three internal views
and is described as follows.


3.1 Monitoring Goal View

The monitoring goal view is the anchor point of the ontology, and represents what
construct elements of a value constellation are necessary in order to fulfill a certain
actor’s monitoring goal. The view is depicted in Fig. 1 and is described as follows.
    An agentive party is an economic rational agent. A value actor is a specialization
of an agentive party. Three stereotypes are recognized to distinguish among
monitoring actors: monitoring agent, monitoring principal and monitoring third-party.
The focus here is on the relation that a monitoring agent has a certain basic goal. Such
a goal is realized by a monitoring object. Relevant value objects for monitoring
include: monitoring object, monitored object and counter-object. In order to achieve a
certain goal, a value actor, as an agentive party, commits to many types of




                                          23
communication acts. These acts bring about changing the state of affairs of objects,
thereby transforming their state-of-affairs into one which satisfies a value actor’s
monitoring goal.
    Three types of communication acts are recognized: production acts, coordination
acts and valuation acts. A value activity is a specialization of a production act. A
value exchange is a specialization of a coordination act. Last, a value indication is a
specialization of a valuation act. Value activities are classified into two stereotypes:
monitoring activity and monitored activity. Cardinality restrictions are defined
accordingly. E3value elements are stereotypes as such. Elements market in dashed
lines represents the boundaries of extension of the e3value framework towards a
monitoring capabilities-enriched one.




                           Fig. 1. Value Monitoring Goal View


   This basic classification comprise the basic one that define, from a dominant
principal point of view, what is necessary to have to realize a monitoring goal. How
these elements communicate is described on the next view of the ontology.


3.2 Monitoring Transaction View

The monitoring transaction view represents how the elements of a value constellation
relate to one another so as to realize a monitoring goal. It elaborates on a coordination
(social world) perspective on the monitoring. It is depicted in Fig. 2 and is described as
follows.




                                           24
   A monitoring transaction is a specialization of a value transaction. Adopting
RBAC [15] guidelines, a more precise semantics is given to the concept of value
transaction. The semantics consists on modeling a monitoring transaction as a triple
assignment involving value actors, value activities and value objects. The rationale
here is to define who provides what to whom. The different actor types are assigned
to activities by commitments of competence. Monitoring principal and monitoring
third-party are assigned to monitoring activity, whereas monitoring agent is assigned
to monitored activity. The behavior of the activity types is defined by what they
produce and consume in terms of objects. Therefore, a monitored activity is the one
which produces a monitored object. This object is used by the monitoring activity to
produce a monitoring object. Monitoring activity also consumes monitoring object (to
realize a monitoring goal). Finally, counter-objects are offered in economic
reciprocity for all the other types of objects. Notice that the concept of a monitoring
transaction is in dashed line, meaning that it is itself a boundary exploration concept
enriching the e3value framework.




                        Fig. 2. Value Monitoring Transaction View


   It is also worth noting that the monitoring transaction view supports only the
organizational aspect of the monitoring interaction. The “how” to monitor aspect
considered here refers to the coordination of the monitoring. The ultimate “how” to
monitor a value activity resides in subjective world, which is covered by the
following ontology view.


3.3 Monitoring Indicator View

The monitoring indicator view still represents how to monitor a value constellation,
but from an individual valuating perspective (i.e. the subjective world). It is depicted
in Fig. 3 and is described as follows.




                                           25
   A monitoring principal has a certain goal as rationale, and this in turn is achieved
by a certain monitoring activity. Again, a monitoring activity appears as a
specialization of a value activity. Although not explicit in the model, in practical
affairs this activity refers to the final consumer’s activity, which nourishes the value
constellation. Therefore such an activity is critical for the system, as without it, the
constellation is not nourished anymore, and therefore, not sustainable.
   The monitoring principal is connected to a value indication activity, but
commitment of authority. This conforms to the tenth fundamental premise of the
Service Dominant Logic [11], that value is idiosyncratic, experimental, individual and
private on the value consumption’s side. A value indication uses two resources to
produce its output. From one side, it uses a set of predefined indicators, each of them
representing their own universe of analysis and discourse. Four generic types of
indicators are classified: Time Indicators, Spatio Indicators, Quantity Indicators, and
Quality Indicators. Each of these indicators can be described in corresponding
ontologies. From the related literature, some options were catalogued. These include,
for instance, the OWL Time Ontology [25], the Ontology of Spatial Diversity [26],
the Mathematical Ontology of Quantity Dimensions [27] and the SERVQUAL model,
which although not yet represented as a formal ontology, constitute a pragmatic
source of relevant quality indicators in Supply Management [28].




                         Fig. 3. Value Monitoring Indicator View


   A value indicator uses also, as a resource, a monitoring transaction. From that
construct it is possible to retrieve the activity of relevance: the monitoring activity.
Finally, the value indication produces a set of specific indicators, by crossing value
activity-related elements with the generic indicators. Indicators can be combined and
assigned to basically anything, in different levels, but here, the focus is on defining
what would be a value activity indicator. According to the e3value ontology [1], the
elements that closest relates to the nourishing of a value activity comprise: (1) value
objects; which are provided through (2) value ports; and these in turn are grouped into




                                           26
(3) value interfaces; and these can be attached to (4) value activities. Therefore, the
construction of a value activity indicator is modeled as a composition of indicators
generated for valuation of all these nested elements.
   Finally, the value activity indicator can provide distinction to a certain value
activity. The logic here is to distinguish among multiple instances of monitoring
activities that could potentially realize a same monitoring goal. Further levels of
aggregation would include indicators for actors, transactions and entire constellations,
for instance. This view closes the ontology cycle, by reconnecting to the point of a
monitoring goal realized by a monitoring activity. The “how” aspect, as specified
here, is essentially qualitative.
   There is a handful of ontology evaluation approaches classified in the literature
[29]. Among them, one of specific interest is the application-focused evaluation [30],
whereby an ontology is confronted with real contextual problems so as to have its
conceptual fitness assessed and refined. Following, we take this direction on
evaluating the ontology proposed here on a case in Customs Control, from the
International Trade domain.


4 Case Study Evaluation

4.1 Core Value Constellation


The case reported here is a sub-extract of complex network of cases initially reported
in [31]. For the sake of practical demonstration, a value model has been specified for
this case and is depicted in Fig. 4. It is described as follows.
    The macro-context is the one of International Trade, where companies and market
segments from the business sub-domain of fruit juice raw materials and derived fruit
composites (and associate goods) collaborate. Therefore, the main actors include: (1)
a raw material supplier, which is competent on producing raw materials (e.g. fruit
extracts); (2) a semi-manufacturer, which is competent on transforming raw materials
in semi-manufactured goods (e.g. fruit composites); (3) a semi-finished material
consumer, which relatively consumes the semi-manufactured goods; (4) a shipper
market segment, which can support the previous actors with transport services; and
(5) a Customs Control Authority, which wants to control all the goods that flow in
this constellation. This actor provides legitimation documents in exchange of excise
taxes. To close the economic reciprocity of the network, money is offered in exchange
in all the other transactions. Therefore, this is a typical Business-to-Government value
constellation.
    Taking the government authority as the dominant monitoring perspective, the
monitoring problem to be addressed here is how to monitor a value constellation in
customs control from the point of view of the critical activity of controlling goods.
Henceforth, one critical assumption must be drawn. It refers to the requirement that
the monitoring should be performed under cost reduction, while increasing overall
monitoring reliability.




                                          27
    One possible approach to solve such a problem is to create some sort of
monitoring chokepoint in the constellation, so as to allow the critical monitoring
information to pass over that. Notice that, in Fig. 4, there is already a chokepoint
actor, highlighted in the core of the constellation. Therefore, solution logic could
comprise the reuse of available actors, activities, exchanges and objects that already
exist in the constellation, so as to minimize extra supporting monitoring costs. Such
logic is grounded on the idea that, in order to be monitored, a value constellation
could have its organizational roles reconfigured.
    It is in this context that the Value Activity Monitoring Ontology is applied and
evaluated.




                 Fig. 4. Customs Control Case: Core Value Constellation


4.2 Monitoring Value Constellation

By applying the ontology proposed here, an alternative solution has been derived,
which is depicted in Fig. 5. The solution is described as follows.




                                          28
               Fig. 5. Customs Control Case: Monitoring Value Constellation
    Starting by the monitoring goal view, the Customs Control Authority is considered
as the monitoring principal of the constellation. In order to achieve its monitoring
goal (fulfilled by the ultimate monitoring object of excise taxes), the actor engages on
a monitoring value activity (production), two value transactions (with semi-
manufacturer and semi-finished material consumer, and a value indication, which is
explained further. Notice that the actor is highlighted, indicating the dominant
perspective. From such, the raw material is seen as playing the role of a monitoring
agent; the semi-manufacturer plays the role of a monitoring third-party; the shipper
plays also the role of a monitoring agent; and the semi-finished manufactured
consumer plays the role of another third-party, so as to close the symmetry of the
model in terms of monitoring versus monitored objects flow and exchange.
    Some attention must be drawn to the effect of such a configuration. First, that all
the actors, activities and objects from the core value constellation are reused. Second,
only their respective organizational roles are reconfigured. Third, only one new value
transaction is added between the Customs Control Authority and the Semi-Finished
Material Consumer. Forth, that the Semi-Manufacturer is used as a monitoring
chokepoint that provides indirect monitoring regarding all the other actors, i.e. the
Customs Control Authority can monitor them all indirectly through this monitoring
chokepoint. Finally, that the main consumption activity here (value monitoring
activity) is on the Customs Control Authority’s side (differently from the core value
constellation, where the consumption point was on the Semi-Finished Material




                                           29
Consumer’s side. All the pertinent roles are represented by UML-like stereotypes on
top of the e3value graphical elements.
   The ultimate point now shifts on to evaluate how well the highlighted monitoring
activity could perform. That is, even having the monitoring objects arrived at the
monitoring activity, the final consumption (and realization) of the monitoring goal
behind the activity of controlling goods would also depend on evaluating (via value
indication) how well such objects would arrive. This can be done by enriching the
corresponding activity, as well as its immediate boundary elements (i.e. monitoring
objects, value port and value interface). This is performed by applying the monitoring
indicator view, from the Value Activity Monitoring Ontology. In Fig. 5 the
composing indicators are represented by annotations on top of the nested elements.
For instance, for the excise tax object coming from the Semi-Manufacturer, the
relevant quality indicator is the SERVQUAL indicator of reliability, whereas for the
excise tax object coming from the Semi-Finished Material Consumer, the relevant
SERVQUAL quality indicator is the one of assurance. For the value port, the
indicator of relevance is the one of pure quantity. For the value interface, the indicator
of relevance is the SERVQUAL indicator of communication. Truly, a value interface
works as container for the value ports. If cooperation ceases, so it does
communication. If a certain communication indicator is attached to the interface, it
means that the communication allowed by that interface is somewhat regulated.
Finally, a composite value indicator is built on the top of the activity. An example of
critical value indicator for this activity has been formulated and placed in the picture,
on the top of the monitoring value activity, as follows:

   (Interf.Communication AND (Port.Quantity AND (Mon_Obj.Reliability OR
Mon_Obj.Assurance)))
   The indicator is built considering the logic paths (AND/OR connectors) inside the
value activity. Therefore it reads that value interface communication restricts value
ports quantity indicators. This in turn restricts monitoring object reliability or
monitoring object assurance.
   Other more complex indicators can be built upon a same monitoring activity,
which depends on how many elements arrive in there. The more interfaces, ports and
incoming objects it has, the more complex the value indicator for that activity can
become. Value indicators can be therefore considered as a prelude for what would be
further deployed on a corresponding process model as a Key Performance Indicator.
Hence, it must be highlighted that the notion of value indicator here is not a process
indicator. Value indicators are of economic nature, and here, essentially qualitative.


5 Conclusions and Future Work

In this paper, an attempt has been made towards solving the problem of how to
monitor a value constellation from a value activity perspective. To address such a
problem, a design artifact has been proposed in terms of an aspect ontology, so-called
Value Activity Monitoring Ontology, which is the ultimate outcome of this research.




                                           30
   The main contributions of such a research outcome are at least threefold. First, that
the artifact can be used as a constructor of value monitoring constellations. Such a
constellation is not a constellation apart, but an ordinary value constellation enriched
with monitoring capabilities. Second, it treats monitoring as an organizational
reconfiguration problem. In other words, an ordinary value constellation does not
need necessarily to be redeployed, or having its structure drastically modified so as to
cope with its own monitoring needs. What can be done is to reallocate such
monitoring capabilities and responsibilities according to the available resources.
Third, that it treats the monitoring of a whole value constellation from a critical value
activity point of view. This represents a self-evolution regarding previous versions of
the ontology, reported in [2] and [3]. Although more specific than value constellation
and value transactions monitoring viewpoint, the value activity monitoring viewpoint
can be especially efficient in cases like the one reported here, where a single
monitoring chokepoint has to be created to as to minimize monitoring costs.
   In terms of external validity, the artifact proposed here advances in modeling
efficiency against its immediate rival theory [5]. The main difference point is that,
while its rival theory structures monitoring as a pattern, the artifact proposed here
structures monitoring as a phenomenological/aspectual ontology. Besides essentially
incomplete, patterns can be seen as alternative reasoning outcomes from the same
ontology. Moreover, monitoring here is structured along a proper set of organizational
roles and entities, connected by Communication Action constructs.
   As an immediate future work, two research directions are identified. The first
comprises to automate the process of configuring a monitoring value constellation, by
employing automated configuration mechanisms developed by related companion
research [32]. The second comprises translating the value monitoring viewpoint
developed here into a process-level representation. This can also involve the use of
value to process-level process coordination developed by other related companion
research [33]


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