Extending choreography with business contract constraints

Business contracts play a central role in governing commercial interactions between organizations. It is increasingly recognized that business contract conditions need to be closely linked to internal and external business processes, both to reduce the risk of contract violations and to ensure compliance with legislative regimes. Recent research has proposed contract languages allowing the specification of obligations, permissions and prohibitions in business contracts. Business processes that cross-organizational boundaries can be specified in choreography and coordination languages but these do not provide appropriate abstractions for contract constraints. In this paper, we examine the transformation of contract constraints in a business contract language into expressions in a choreography language. An example cross-organizational process is presented, along with a specification of the process in a choreography language and a specification of a set of contract conditions for the process in a business contract language. The contract terms are then translated into choreography expressions that govern the process to ensure compliance. Subsequent discussion explores a number of business and technology issues related to the results. We conclude that cross-organizational business processes can be monitored and enforced according to business contract specifications through the transformation of a contract definition to constraints on process behavior.

Experience as a moderator of involvement and satisfaction on brand loyalty in a business-to-business setting 02-314R

This paper examines the relative influence of two key antecedents of brand loyalty-satisfaction and involvement and the moderating role of experience, using a sample of business buyers. The central argument of this paper is that the strength of the effect of these variables on attitudinal brand loyalty will vary with the level of customer experience with purchasing the service. Building on previous research which examined low-risk, customer product settings [Kim, J., Lim, J.S., & Bhargava, M. (1998). The role of affect in attitude formation: A classical conditioning approach. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 26 (2): pp. 143-152; Shiv, B., & Fedorikhin, A. (1999). Heart and mind in conflict: The interplay of affect and cognition in consumer decision-making. Journal of Consumer Research 26: 278], this study shows that for a high-risk setting, involvement with the service category will be more dominant in its influence on brand loyalty than satisfaction with the preferred brand. Furthermore, it was found that experience moderated the influence of involvement and satisfaction on attitudinal brand loyalty for a high-risk business-to-business service. This study provides new insights into the theory and practice of buyer behavior and business-to-business brands. Crown Copyright (C) 2004 Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.