Declarative approaches to business process modeling are regarded as well suited for highly volatile environments, as they enable a high degree of flexibility. However, problems in understanding and maintaining declarative process models often impede their adoption. Likewise, little research has been conducted into the understanding of declarative process models. This paper takes a first step toward addressing this fundamental question and reports on an empirical investigation consisting of an exploratory study and a follow-up study focusing on the system analysts’ sense-making of declarative process models that are specified in Declare. For this purpose, we distributed real-world Declare models to the participating subjects and asked them to describe the illustrated process and to perform a series of sense-making tasks. The results of our studies indicate that two main strategies for reading Declare models exist: either considering the execution order of the activities in the process model, or orienting by the layout of the process model. In addition, the results indicate that single constraints can be handled well by most subjects, while combinations of constraints pose significant challenges. Moreover, the study revealed that aspects that are similar in both imperative and declarative process modeling languages at a graphical level, while having different semantics, cause considerable troubles. This research not only helps guiding the future development of tools for supporting system analysts, but also gives advice on the design of declarative process modeling notations and points out typical pitfalls to teachers and educators of future systems analysts.

In this age of digital transformation, knowledge-intensive organizations strive to improve business outcomes and sustainability by improving their knowledge-intensive business processes (KIBPs) to obtain a competitive advantage. Many researchers have claimed that KIBP enhancement is possible through knowledge management (KM) initiatives supported by an effective KM infrastructure. Current KM infrastructures deal with formal KM procedures, where knowledge is created, stored, assimilated, and disseminated. Such activities, however, are designed to be performed outside of the business process. KM infrastructures are expected to be more effective when they include specific real-time knowledge procedures integrated into the operational flow of KIBPs. This paper explores how modern KM infrastructures can support KIBPs, considering both formal and operational KM procedures. Our study’s essential contribution is the conceptual KM infrastructure framework (KMIF) developed based on grounded theory research. This infrastructure provides a systematic and robust approach, starting from the ground up, for structuring organizational knowledge assets across a range of KIBP environments. We define operational knowledge procedures directly involved in KIBPs, adding a layer to KM infrastructures beyond the formal knowledge procedures. A mixed-method case study was conducted to demonstrate and evaluate the proposed KMIF for enhancing business outcomes and sustainability of knowledge-intensive organizations.

INTRODUCTION: The Physics of Notations (PoN) is a theory for the design of cognitively effective visual notations, emphasizing the need for design grounded in objective and verifiable rationale. Although increasingly applied, no systematic analysis of PoN applications has yet been performed to assess the theory's efficacy in practice. OBJECTIVES: Our primary objective was to assess the scope and verifiability of PoN applications. METHOD: We performed a systematic literature review (SLR) of peer-reviewed PoN applications. We analyzed what visual notations have been evaluated and designed using the PoN, for what reasons, to what degree applications consider requirements of their notation's users, and how verifiable these applications are. RESULTS: Seventy PoN applications were analyzed. We found major differences between applications evaluating existing notations and applications designing new notations. Particularly, in the case of new notations, we found that most applications adopted the PoN with little critical thought towards it, rarely considered its suitability for a particular context, and typically treated and discussed the PoN with few, if any, verifiable details and data. CONCLUSION: The results warrant consideration for those applying the PoN to do so carefully, and show the need for additional means to guide designers in systematically applying the PoN.