Incorporating semantic bridges into information flow of cross-organizational business process models

In this paper we propose an approach for incorporating semantic bridges into cross-organizational business process models to facilitate information flow design across heterogeneous conceptualizations. Independent corporate ontology-based information models are exploited for explicit semantic modeling of information flow within each organization. Furthermore, description logic rule-based semantic bridges are applied in the design phase to enable an automated mediation between the different corporate conceptualizations. This allows for seamless information flow design across organizational borders, as well as for mediation between the abstract business perspective and the underlying IT perspective. We prototyped the approach as a functional extension to an existing BPMN modeling editor and perform an experts-driven evaluation based on a cross-organizational e-business scenario.