IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/orserv/v1y2009i3p169-188.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Structural Analysis of a Business Enterprise

Author

Listed:
  • Ying Tat Leung

    (IBM Research Division, Almaden Research Center, 650 Harry Road, San Jose, CA 95120)

  • Jesse Bockstedt

    (Information Systems and Operations Management, School of Management, George Mason University, 4400 University Drive, Fairfax, VA 22030)

Abstract

A business enterprise is composed of a number of entities, such as resources, people, activities, and products. These entities are sometimes collectively called the business architecture of the enterprise and are clearly useful for information system design and integration. In this paper we show how these entities can be useful far beyond information system related purposes. We introduce the concept of structural analysis, which is a methodology for analyzing the different relationships between these entities. One or few selected relationships give rise to a representation or view of the enterprise. As we demonstrate through a simple yet illustrative example of a hypothetical coffee shop business, these different views can provide many insights and points of analysis valuable for various purposes. Structural analysis provides an interactive, analytical environment for a user to examine an enterprise from multiple perspectives, an approach not unlike On-Line Analytical Processing (OLAP) but for analyzing the qualitative or structural aspects of the enterprise. [ Service Science , ISSN 2164-3962 (print), ISSN 2164-3970 (online), was published by Services Science Global (SSG) from 2009 to 2011 as issues under ISBN 978-1-4276-2090-3.]

Suggested Citation

  • Ying Tat Leung & Jesse Bockstedt, 2009. "Structural Analysis of a Business Enterprise," Service Science, INFORMS, vol. 1(3), pages 169-188, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:orserv:v:1:y:2009:i:3:p:169-188
    DOI: 10.1287/serv.1.3.169
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/serv.1.3.169
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/serv.1.3.169?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:orserv:v:1:y:2009:i:3:p:169-188. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.