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A Proposal to Model Knowledge Dimension in Sensitive
Business Processes
Mariam Ben Hassen, Mohamed Turki, Faïez Gargouri
ISIMS, MIRACL Laboratory, University of Sfax,
P.O. Box 242, 3021 Sfax, Tunisia
mariembenhassen@yahoo.fr, mohamed.turki@isetsf.rnu.tn, faiez.gargouri@isims.rnu.tn
Abstract. Knowledge development in organizations relies on Sensitive Business Processes
(SBPs), which are characterized by a high complexity and dynamism in their execution,
high number of critical activities with intensive acquisition, sharing, storage and (re)use of
very specific crucial knowledge, diversity of knowledge sources, and high degree of
collaboration among experts. In this paper, we propose a semantically rich conceptualization
for describing a SBP organized in a new Business Process Meta-model for Knowledge
Identification (BPM4KI), in order to develop a rich and expressive graphical representation
of SBPs to identify and localize the crucial knowledge. BPM4KI covers all aspects of
business process modeling: the functional, organizational, behavioral, informational,
intentional and knowledge perspectives. We focus more specifically on Knowledge
Perspective which has not yet evolved into BP models. This perspective is semantically rich
and well founded is on the « core » domain ontologies. Besides, we evaluate the relevance
of some proposed concepts through a real SBP scenario from medical domain in the context
of the organization of protection of the motor disabled people of Sfax-Tunisia.
Keywords: Knowledge Management, knowledge identification, sensitive business process,
business process modeling, «core» domain ontologies.
1 Introduction
Nowadays, modern organizations become increasingly conscious of the necessity to formalize
and capitalize knowledge produced and used by their business processes (BPs). In this context,
business process modeling (BPM) has become crucial concern for any successful organizations
to improve the identification, acquisition, storage, dissemination, sharing, creation and (re) use of
their individual and organizational knowledge. Considering the large amount of knowledge to be
preserved and enhanced, such organizations must first identify and model the Sensitive Business
Processes (SBPs) which are likely to mobilize crucial knowledge on which it is necessary to
capitalize. In fact, the more organization’s BPs are sensitive, the more they can mobilize crucial
knowledge. Few existing research on Knowledge Management (KM)-BPM focusing on the
identification, analysis and modeling of SBPs in order to localize and identify the crucial
knowledge1. We quote: the Global Analysis METHodology (GAMETH) [1], the identifying
crucial knowledge methodology [2] and the Sensitive Organization's Process Identification
Methodology [3]. However, the critical phase of « SBPs modeling » has not been explicitly
1 The first facet of knowledge capitalization process [1] concerns problems bound to the identification and
localization of crucial knowledge, that is knowledge (explicit knowledge) and knowhow (tacit knowledge)
which are necessary for decision-making processes and for the progress of the essential processes which
constitute the heart of the activities of the company: it is necessary to identify them, to localize them, to
characterize them, to make cartographies of them, to estimate their economic value and to organize them into a
hierarchy.
addressed and studied in depth. Three major limitations can be emphasized. In particular, we
have noted the absence of: (i) a rigorous scientific approach of BPM for knowledge
identification, (ii) a rigorous conceptual specification for the SBP notion and clarity in the
representation of its important features, and (iii) expressiveness of BPM formalisms and BP
models with a knowledge dimension and other BPM aspects. In fact, the knowledge dimension
(i.e. the knowledge required to perform activities, the knowledge created as a result of BP
activities, the sources of knowledge, the explicit knowledge, the tacit knowledge, individual and
collective dimension of knowledge/activities, the knowledge flows between knowledge sources
and activities, the different opportunities of knowledge conversion, etc.) needed for performing
SBP is not explicitly represented, integrated and implemented in BP models and BPM
approaches. So, in order to remedy for these lacks, this paper aims to extend and consolidate
previous work [2, 3], mainly to reduce the gap between BPM and KM and address an important
problem that is not often dealt with by KM methodologies. Exactly, our mission aims to enrich
and optimize the operation of « modeling and representation of identified SBPs » in order to
increase the probability of localizing and identifying the crucial knowledge that requires
capitalization. This reduces the cost of the operation of capitalizing on knowledge.
This research work presents a conceptual specification of SBP, by proposing a new multi-
perspective meta-model of BPs representation to localize and identify the crucial knowledge,
entitled «BPM4KI: Business Process Meta-Model for Knowledge Identification». BPM4KI
intends to explicit and organize the key concepts and relationships that characterize a SBP. It
integrates all relevant aspects/dimensions relating to BPM-KM, i.e. the functional perspective,
the organizational perspective, the behavioral perspective, the informational perspective, the
intentional perspective and the knowledge perspective. In this paper, we focus more on the «
Knowledge Perspective» (or «Knowledge Dimension»), which is not yet explicited and
integrated into the BPs models. This perspective, modeled as an ontological conceptual pattern
(OCP) [4, 5], is semantically rich and well-based on «core» domain ontologies (which are based
on top of the DOLCE foundational ontology [6]. These ontologies provide a set of referential of
generic concepts and relationships semantically rich and consensual which we reused, firstly, to
broaden and deepen the elements of definition of Knowledge dimension, and on the other hand,
to characterize the useful concepts for a rigorous specification and an enriched modeling of the
SBPs.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows: section 2 presents a specification of SBP,
describing its main features. Section 3 presents the central concepts that describe the knowledge
perspective of SBP necessary for the BPM. Section 4 illustrates the application and the relevance of
these concepts, based on a real case study. Section 5 concludes the paper and underlines some
future research topics.
2 Sensitive Business Processes
A SBP is a particular type of BP. It has its own characteristics that distinguish it from classical
BPs. Indeed, a SBP represents the core process of organization which constitutes the heart of the
organization’s activities [7–9].
2.1 Main characteristics of SBPs
A BP is described as « sensitive », if at least one of the following requirements is fulfilled:
It mobilizes « crucial knowledge », i.e. the most valuable/important knowledge on which it is
necessary to capitalize, in the sense that the risk of their loss and the cost of their (re)creation
is considered to be important, also their contribution to reach the firm objectives is very
important and their use duration is long.
It contains activities that valorize the acquisition, storage, dissemination, sharing, and creation
and (re) use of individual and organizational knowledge, in the sense that it mobilizes a large
diversity of knowledge sources consigning a great amount of very important heterogeneous
knowledge.
It is heavily dependent on the tacit knowledge embedded in the stakeholders’minds (i.e.
experts). In fact, this knowledge is mainly implicit, rarely explicit and disseminated the by
experts who hold it, and will therefore be difficult to identify, exploit and valorize by other
collaborators.
It includes a high number of critical activities [1–3] mobilizing crucial knowledge. In our
context, a critical activity mobilizes different types of knowledge: (i) imperfect individual and
collective knowledge (tacit and/or explicit) (i.e. missing, poorly mastered, incomplete,
uncertain, etc.) which are necessary for solving critical determining problems; (ii) a great
amount of heterogeneous knowledge recorded on multiple knowledge sources (dispersed and
sometimes lacking accessibility); (iii) expertise and/or rare knowledge held by a very small
number of experts (who carry out actions with high levels of experience, expertise, and
creativity); flexible knowledge owned by experts; (iv) very important tacit organizational
knowledge (like competences, abilities and practical experiences).
Its execution involves a large number of business domains (in terms of internal and external
organization unit/agents operating in the BP), having distinct experience and expertise levels.
It include a high number of collaborative organizational activities (inter/intra organizational)
that mobilize, exchange, share and generate new individual and collective knowledge that is
created by dynamic conversion of existing ones in the BP. So, it depends on knowledge flows
and transfer of data, information and knowledge objects between communicating process
participants.
It is typically unstructured or semi-structured. A flexible BP contains a very dynamic and
unpredictable control-flow, comprising complex activities that may frequently change over
time or at design-and run-time. Moreover, SBP participants may be influenced by or may have to
comply with constraints and rules that drive organizational actions performance and decision
making.
It possesses a high degree of dynamism in the objectives’ change associated to it, essentially,
in decision making context. The change of organizational objective leads to a new
organizational distal intention (which is necessary to control the SBP) and influences experts’
decision making.
Its contribution to reach strategic objectives of the organization is very important. Also, their
realization duration are important and often their costs are very high.
Due to those characteristics, modeling and organizing the knowledge involved in SBP is
relatively critical.
2.2 SBP Specification : A Multi-Perspective Meta-Model of BPs for Knowledge
Identification Based on Core Ontologies
In order to enrich and improve the SBP modeling, we propose a new multi-dimensional generic
meta-model of BP representation for knowledge identification, entitled «BPM4KI: Business
Process Meta-model for Knowledge Identification». This enriched meta-model serves two
purposes: (i) to deepen the elements and dimensions defining an SBP, by offering a coherent
conceptual specification for this BP type, and (ii) to develop a rich and expressive graphical
representation of SBPs to improve the localization and identification of crucial knowledge
mobilized and created by these processes. This new extended meta-model, which is a
continuation of previous works [7– 9], is well founded whose concepts (and the relationships
between them) are semantically enriched by the «core» domain ontologies. Specifically, the SBP
conceptualization is jointly supported, on the one hand, by the specialization of the DOLCE
foundational ontology [6], to specify and define the invariant generic BP concepts, including
SBPs, and on the other hand, by the conception of Ontological Conceptual Patterns (OCP) [4,5]
based on the reuse of ontological modules relating to the «core» domain ontologies [10–14]
(which were based on top of DOLCE).
The current version of BPM4KI offers a referential of generic concepts and semantic
relationships relevant to the BPM-KM domain, exploring the dynamic, the collaboration and the
knowledge aspects of the SBP in greater detail. It is categorized in six perspectives (or
dimensions) which are complementary and essential for a comprehensive and expressive
characterization and representation of a SBP:
Functional Perspective, represents the BP elements which are being performed. The main
concept that reflects this dimension is Action2. It includes: Individual Action,
Action of Collective, Action of Organization, Organizational
Action, Organizational Unit Action, Critical Organizational
Activity, Collaborative Organizational Activity, etc.
Organizational Perspective, represents the different participants (the organizational resources)
invoked in the execution of process elements as well as their affiliation. The basic element of
this perspective is Agentive Entity and includes: Collective, Organization,
Organization Unit, Human, Expert, Internal Agent, External Agent.
Behavioral perspective, depicts the concepts required to demonstrate the flows of activities
and information, coordination between different participants as well as concepts that effect,
trigger or control flows of activities. The basic and generic concepts of this perspective are
Control Flow, Flow Node, Control Node, Connecting Object, message
Flow, Conditional Control Flow, Non Conditional Control Flow, etc.
Informational perspective, describes the informational entities (such as input, output, physical
or data objects, artifacts, messages) which are generated, consumed, or exchanged within a
process/activity and between different participants. The following concepts are related to this
dimension: Resource, Material Resource, Immaterial Resource,
Informational Resource, Event, Contingency, Information Object
Input, Data Object Input, Information Object Output, Data Object
Output, Physical Artifact, Communication, Informal Exchange,
Message, Physical Knowledge Support, etc.
Intentional perspective, provides an overview perspective of the process and describes major
BP characteristics. It captures important BP context information in order to ensure the BP
flexibility. It comprises: Intention, Collective Distal Intention,
Organizational Distal Intention, Individual Objective,
Collective Objective, Organizational Objective, Strategic
Objective, Deliberate Action, Culminated Process, Client,
Sensitive Business Process, Internal Process, External Process,
Core Process, Strategic Process, etc. (which are some process types), etc.
Knowledge perspective, provides an overview perspective of the organizational and individual
knowledge mobilized and created by an BP/organization as well as the knowledge flow
proceeding within and between BPs/organizations. It addresses all relevant aspects related to
KM. This vantage presents the generic concepts: Knowledge, Capacity, Individual
Knowledge, Collective Knowledge, Internal Knowledge, Tacit Knowledge,
External Knowledge, Explicit Knowledge, Propositional Knowledge,
procedural Knowledge, Strategic Knowledge, Expert, Physical
Knowledge Support, CommunitativeInteraction, Knowledge Flow,
Socialization, Externalization, Explicitation, Combination, etc.
In the following, we describe our proposal of modeling of the « Perspective Knowledge» that
we have extended in greater detail.
2 With respect to our notation, the informal labels on BPM4KI concepts appear in the text in the Courrier
new font with First Capital Letters for the concepts and a javaLikeNotation for relations.
3 Knowledge Dimension in SBP Modeling
According to the literature review, the integration of KM into BPs was identified as the most
pressing as well as the most promising practical and theoretical task in KM [15]. Therefore,
several attempts have already been made to integrate the domain of KM and BPM, which consist
in introducing the process dimension into KM [16–19] or knowledge dimension into BP models
[20–27]. However, the integration of KM and BP orientation has not yet received sufficient
attention. In fact, the knowledge dimension needed for BPM is not explicitly represented,
integrated and implemented in BP models and BPM approaches/formalisms. To address this
research gap, the current paper proposes an extended knowledge perspective as the most relevant
BPM dimensions, which has not yet evolved into BP models, in order to enrich the graphical
representation of SBPs and improve the localization and identification of crucial knowledge
mobilized and created by these processes. This extended perspective highlights the concepts and
relationships needed to completely and adequately address SBP essential characteristics.
Knowledge perspective in BPM focuses on the knowledge flow and the dynamics of
acquisition, preservation, conversion, transfer, sharing, development, and (re) use of individual
and organizational knowledge within and between organizations. However, this perspective
considers the different types of knowledge (tacit/explicit dimension, declarative/procedural
dimension, etc.) mobilized and created by each type of activity related to the organization's BPs,
the different sources of knowledge, their localization and where they are usable or used, their
nature, their mode of dissemination/ organizational coverage (individual/collective dimension)
(individual/collective dimension), the different opportunity of knowledge conversion and
creation, etc.
Our proposal, presented in the form of an Ontological Conceptual Pattern (OCP) of
knowledge (see Fig. 1) is based on the reuse and the specification of central generic concepts
(and the relationships between them) defined in different ontological modules of the global and
consistent ontology OntoSpec3[10]: Capacity-OS, Action-OS, Action of Organization-OS,
Agentive Entity-OS, Partcipation-role-OS, Organization-OS, Function & Artefact-OS Resource-
OS, Communication-OS and Discourse_Message_Discoure_act-OS. Furthermore, we reused
some concepts proposed in the ontological modules IE&C (Inscription, Expression and
Conceptualization) [11], Know-How and Knowing-That [14]. These different core domain
ontologies are useful and sufficient to characterize the useful concepts for a rigorous specification
and an enriched modeling of Knowledge dimension of SBPs. Figure 1 organizes and explicit the
central concepts of the knowledge perspective (marked in gray), in addition to inter-aspects
relationships, giving a view of all relevant aspects of BPM4KI as a whole.
In the literature review, different connotations were associated with the term « Knowledge ».
A more general characterization of this concept is given in [28–31]: « A knowledge (or know-
how) is the capacity (or the disposition) to perform an action aiming to achieve a goal”.
Meanwhile, A Capacity is a state which enables to fulfill at least one Action Role (i.e. play some
role of participation in an Action)» [31]. Thus, we propose to characterize knowledge as follows:
A Knowledge is the Capacity which carriesOut (and affects) a type of Action
(i.e. an Organizational Action), which isBornedBy an Agentive Entity
(which can be a Human, a Collective, an Expert or an Organization).
Several features of Knowledge have been further described in the literature and this leads us to
classify it according to some dimensions (see Fig. 2). In this paper, we retain the following
dimensions: (a) the source of knowledge, (b) nature (content) of knowledge, (c) organizational
value of knowledge, and (d) organizational coverage of knowledge, which seem useful and
relevant to the context of our research work, the localization and identification of knowledge.
3 http://home.mis.u-picardie.fr/~site-ic/site/spip.php?article53
Behavioral Aspect
Functional Aspect
Intentional Aspect
Informational Aspect
Organizational Aspect
OrganizationalActivity
CriticalOrganizationalActivity
AgentiveEntity
Collective
Organization
CollaborativeOrganizationalActivityKnowledgeIntensiveActivity
Expert
{overlapping, incomplete}
Human *2..*
Knowledge
TacitKnowledge
PhysicalKnowledgeSupportExplicitKnowledge
{disjoint, complete}
hasForProperPart
isInternalizedIn
*isExternalizedIn
explicitablenowledge
isCombinedIn
isSocializedIn
isTransmittedIn
isBorneBy
isBorneBy
OrganizationalDistalIntentionisControlledBy
isBorneBy
isBorneBy
OrganizationalObjective
1..*
1..*
hasForContent
isCarryOutBy
1
1..*
isValidFor
isBorneBy
State
Capacity
IndividualAction ActionofCollective
ActionofOrganization
BeliefState
Description InstructionalDescription
InternalKnowledge
AvailableKnowledge
External Knowledge
Familiarity Knowledge
Strategic Knowledge
hasForContent
isCarriedOutBy
Externalization
Internalization
InternalActor
participatesIn
CommunicativeInteraction
DiscourseAct
Communication
Message
KnowledegeFlow
*
1
Socialization
Explicitation
Combination
MessageFlow
InformalExchange
1
1..*
isCarriedBy
11..*
*
*
occursIn/causes
Action
FlowNode
propositionhasForTheme
PhysicalArtefact
DelibearteAction
isGenerateBy
isGenerateBy
isGenerateBy
isGenerateBy
isGenerateBy
hasForResult
hasForResult
hasForResult
hasForResult
hasForResult
ProceduralKnowledde
PropositionalKnowledge
LatentKnowledge
ConsciousKnowledge
CollectiveKnowledge
IndividualKnowledge
OrganizationalKnowledge
Experiencer
ExternalActor
1..*
1..*
1..*
1..*
*
1..*
1..*
1
1..*
1
1..*isBorneBy
isBorneBy
1
1..*
isBorneBy
isBorneBy
1..*1..*
First dimension
* *
*
*
*
*
explicitablenowledge
isExplicitedIn
*
*
*
*
* *
hasForProperPart
{disjoint, complete}
**
1
1
1
hasForTheme
hasForTheme
isAffectedBy/
1..*1..*
1..*
1..*
FlowElement
ConnectingObject
1..*1..*
isLinkedTo
SequenceFlow Association0..10..1
isLinkedTo
Event
1
*
isSent/ReceivedBy
1..*
1..*
1..**
*
*
*
*
*
**
hasForResult
*
*
*
*
*
Organizational coverage
isBorneBy
isBorneBy
hasForProperPart
SensitiveBusiness Process Business Process
2..*
1..*
Informational Resource
*2..* hasForProperPart
{incomplete}
Fig. 1. Ontological Conceptual Pattern relating to the Knowledge Perspective/Dimension of SBP
Fig. 2. Knowledge is classified according to several dimensions: (a) source of knowledge, (b) nature of
knowledge, (c) organizational value of knowledge, (d) organizational coverage of knowledge. A descending edge
between two concepts represents a subsumption link. A horizontal line between edges from a father concept
indicates that the sibling concepts are incompatible.
(a) Source of knowledge. According to this dimension, we propose to make the distinction between
three types of knowledge: Internal Knowledge, Explicit Knowledge and External
Knowledge. Internal Knowledge (or implicit knowledge) isBornBy one or more
Persons (Humans). It is an implicit knowledge related to the human being, who exists in the head of
its holder, and includes innate or acquired competences and skills, his/her beliefs and aspirations. An
Internal Knowledge could be either Conscious knowledge, Latent knowledge or
Tacit Knowledge. Conscious knowledge is a conscious and intentional knowledge, is
cognitively available and may be made explicit easily. Latent knowledge has been typically
learning as a by-product and is not available consciously. It may be made explicit, for example in
situations, which are similar to the original learning situation, however. Tacit knowledge is
highly personal, developed and acquired through experiences and (cultural) socialization situations. It
is a non explainable knowledge, and is specific in its context and based on intuition and perception.
Explicit Knowledge concerns knowledge that is « made explicit » (explained) to the outside
world, e.g., through spoken language, but is still bound to the human being. External Knowledge
is detached from the human being and may be codified, formalized, transferable and usable at the
collective level of the organization, in the form of reusable storage media (e.g. documents) as part of
the organizational memory and independently of the subject which specified it. Available
Knowledge (either Explicit Knowledge or External Knowledge) isBornBy one or
more Physical Knowledge Supports (e.g. documents, computer system, etc.) enabling their
capitalization, dissemination and sharing among stakeholders of the organization. It is a way for
formalizing and storing Explicit/External Knowledge. A Physical Knowledge
Support is a Material Resource (informational resource), having source of knowledge
information interpreted and mobilized by the agents (operating in the BP) during the execution of their
activities (these supports transmit not only information, but also significance). From this viewpoint,
knowledge is useful for interpreting information while information is useful for transferring
knowledge.
(b) Nature of knowledge. We mainly distinguish between two categories of knowledge:
Propositional Knowledge and Procedural Knowledge. These types of knowledge are
dependent on each other and have some points in common with the typology presented above.
Propositional knowledge « Knowing-That / What » (also called declarative, factual or
descriptive knowledge [32] corresponds to theoretical knowledge, « knowledge » memorization of
facts, events, rules or principles of a given domain. They are usually made in a formal language.
Procedural knowledge « Knowing-How » corresponds to the Experience, the practical
knowledge, the knowledge on « how-to-do», the procedure of performing the Action, the « know-
how». These are dynamic knowledge that may develop only in a context of action. The authors [14]
have defined two terms: «Know-How » and « Knowing-That » as defined by Ryle [28] and [33], and
distinguished between the disposition to perform an action, and the belief state concerning a
description, which may be either factual or propositional. Moreover, the correspondence of these two
concepts of the core ontology COOK [14] with Procedural Knowledge and Propositional
knowledge concepts, leads us to propose the following characterization: A Propositional
knowledge is a Capacity (or disposition) which hasForTheme (concerns) an Action
while Propositional knowledge is a Belief State (which is a State) which
hasForTheme a Description.
(c) Organizational value of knowledge. We propose two classes of knowledge: Strategic
Knowledge and Familiarity Knowledge. Strategic knowledge «Know-Why/When»
(also called conditional or pragmatic knowledge) is meta-cognitive knowledge on optimal strategies
for structuring a problem-solving approach or for carry out an Action. They are also dynamic
knowledge, which correspond to the why and how of the action and, also, allow to determine the time
and context in which it is appropriate to use such a procedure or such knowledge. This type of
knowledge is one of the characteristics of expertise. Thus, a Strategic Knowledge
hasForTheme an Action. Finally, the Familiarity Knowledge (called environmental or
deep knowledge) is acquaintance with certain situations and environments; it also resembles aspects of
situational knowledge, i.e., knowledge about situations, which typically appear in particular domains.
(d) Organizational coverage of knowledge. We distinguish between two main classes: Individual
Knowledge and Collective Knowledge. An Individual Knowledge isBorneBy an
Individual (a Human). This knowledge includes, besides the intellectual capacity, the vision that
every individual holds of the organization to which he/she is affiliated, as well as the explicit
knowledge in the form of personal notes. As opposed to the individual, a Collective Knowledge
isBornBy a Collective. It's a knowledge sharable by several people. Their coverage can be
global, or partial which bound to a structure. An Organizational Knowledge is a
Collective Knowledge, which isBornBy an Organization. Thus, the different types of
knowledge, presented above, can be held individually or collectively, internally or externally. In the
first case, Knowledge areBornBy an Internal Actor, which is an Agentive Entity
(an Individual, a Collective, an Organizational Unit, or an Organization)
internal to an Organisation (affiliatedTo the same Organization). While in the
second case, Knowledge areBornBy an External Actor, which is an Agentive
Entity external to an Organisation (which is not affiliatedTo Organization).
Individual Latent Knowledge, Individual Tacit Knowledge, Individual
Procedural Knowledge, Individual Strategic Knowledge and Individual
Familiarity Knowledge areBornBy one Expert. It is linked to the mental models, talents,
innate or acquired experiences and skills, abilities, individual tricks, trades secrets, etc. While,
Collective Latent Knowledge, Collective Tacit Knowledge Collective
Procedural Knowledge, Collective Strategic Knowledge and Collective
Familiarity Knowledge areBornBy at least two Experts (which constitute a
Collective) and mobilized by a Collective Action. It manifests itself in routines which may
be shared and exchanged through direct communication with others. Un Expert is an
Experiencier (which is an Agentive Entity ) who bears a Capacity To Perform a
type of Action with high levels of experience, expertise, performance, creativity and innovation.
Furthermore, Agentive Entity carriesOut one or more Communicative
Interactions, which hasForProperPart Communications. Within this type of action,
different types of Agentive Entity interact and exchange Knowledge through Messages
typically in an informal way (Informal Exchanges). Therefore, new Knowledge is developed,
which is the result of a sequence of operations which, starting from the private and non formalized
individual dimension of knowledge, determines the collective dimension (formalized and
disseminated) of knowledge. Therefore, we relied on the theory of knowledge creation [34], and we
propose to distinguish between five main modes/processes of conversion and transmission of different
types of knowledge4, namely: Socialization, Explicitation, Externalization,
Internalization and combination. Indeed, Individual Tacit Knowledge
isTransmittedIn Collective Tacit Knowledge through practice, sharing of experiences,
conscious or unconscious observation, constructive discussions, learning, etc. (in the context of a
Communicative Interaction). This is a matter of Socialisation. Socialisation is a
Deliberate Action, which hasForAgent a Collective (which hasForProperPart at
least two Humans), which isGeneratedBy Communication, and hasForResult new
TacitKnowledge (mental models). Socialisation may involve the participation of
External Actors. Knowledge Flows are needed to model the dynamics of Knowledge, i.e.,
all of organization, acquisition, conversion, transfer, sharing, development and usage of Knowledge
among the different sources of knowledge, participants and among BP activities.
Once modeled, the SBPs can be graphically represented, using the most popular standard for BPM,
BPMN 2.0 [35], in order to localize the knowledge that is mobilized and created by these processes.
We selected BPMN as the most suitable BPM notations for representing SBPs, because it incorporates
requirements for SBP modeling better than other BPM formalisms [9]. Nevertheless, despite its
strength representation, BPMN 2.0 does not yet provide support for SBP modeling. Some of its
concepts should be adapted and extended to be convenient for a rich and expressive representation of
SBPs. In fact, this notation does not explicitly support the key concepts of the Knowledge perspective
of BPM4KI (as Critical Organizational Activity, Explicit Knowledge,
Individual Tacit Knowledge, Collective Tacit Knowledge, Expert, Distal
Intention, etc.). So, to overcoming the shortcomings of BPMN 2.0, this extension must take into
consideration, on the one hand, the knowledge dimension, and on the other hand, integrate the new
concepts of BPM4KI to represent issues relevant at the intersection of KM and BPM with a sufficient
level of details.
4 Case Study
We intend to apply the concepts proposed by the Knowledge perspective of BPM4KI meta-model on a
real case in the medical domain in the context of the Association of Protection of the Motor-disabled of
Sfax-Tunisia (ASHMS). We aim to evaluate their potential to build an understandable, adequate and
expressive representation of SBP, in order to improve the localization and the identification of
knowledge. Particularly, we are interested in the early care of the disabled children with cerebral palsy
(CP). An depth analysis of this care has been made by [36]. Our main objective consists in providing
better localization and identification of relevant and pragmatic medical knowledge necessary to the
conduct of the medical care process of the disabled children with Cerebral Palsy, which is a SBP. In
this study, we take into consideration the results of experimentation of the methodology SOPIM
proposed by Turki et al. [3] in the context of ASHMS. We have opted for the «Process related to the
neuro-pediatric care of a child with CP» to illustrate the contributions of our enriched Knowledge
perspective of BPM4KI. Fig. 3 illustrates a SBP model extract of the neuropediatric consultation
process using BPMN 2.0 [35], enriched with the knowledge dimension. As stated above, this notation
does not, however, provide primitives to explicitly represent all relevant aspects related to knowledge
dimension in BP models. To remedy for the shortcomings, we tried to extend this notation and started
by integrating some specific graphical icons in the form of some BPMN modeling elements relating to
4 Socialization converts tacit knowledge of a person into tacit knowledge of another person. This may succeed by
exchange of experience or in a learning-by-doing situation. Explicitation is the internal process of a person, to make
internal knowledge of the latent or conscious type explicit, e.g., by articulation and formulation (in the conscious case)
or by using metaphors, analogies and models (in the latent case). Externalization converts from explicit knowledge to
external knowledge or information and leads to detached knowledge as seen from the perspective of the human being,
which can be kept in organizational memory systems. Internalization converts either external or explicit knowledge
into internal knowledge of the conscious or latent types. It leads to an integration of experiences and competences in
your own mental model. Finally, combination combines existing explicit or external knowledge in new forms.
several new BPM4KI concepts (see Fig. 3). During our experimentation, we have identified different
types of medical knowledge mobilized and created by each critical activity related to the SBP of neuro-
pediatric care.
For instance, the knowledge A2Kp1 « Synthesis of neurological abnormalities related to motor,
somatic and sensory development of the young child at risk and the different clinical signs » is
produced by the critical activity A2 « Clinical neurological examination». Note that this
materialized/externalized knowledge is created as a result of the activity execution by the Neuro-
Pediatrician, during which he interacts with information (i.e. source of knowledge information) related
to the child with CP (based on his tacit knowledge) to generate and communicate his own knowledge.
A2Kp1 is stored in the following physical media: the neurological assessment sheet, neuropsychological
assessment, the sensitive assessment sheet and the neuro-motor assessment. These physical media of
knowledge are located internally within the Neonatology service in the University Hospital Hedi
Chaker, precisely in the various archives drawers or patients’ directories. A2Kp1 is of a scientific,
technical and measure nature which is related to patients. It represents a collective explicit knowledge,
part of which can be represented in the form of an individual explicit knowledge recorded on the care
data collection sheet of the Neuropediatrician. This knowledge is imperfect (general, incomplete and
uncertain). A2Kp1 is mobilized by the activity A3 « Evaluation of intellectual functioning of young
child with CP ».
It is important to mention that not all BPM4KI concepts are applicable and must be instantiated in
every SBP scenario. Precisely, relevant tacit aspects could not be represented explicitly, such as: the
tacit knowledge embedded in the Neuropediatric's mind, the knowledge conversion and the knowledge
flows exchanged between communicating process participants and among activities, and the distal
intentions which are responsible for making Neuro-Pediatrician to perform any action and achieve an
organizational objective.
Fig. 3. Fragment of SBP model in BPMN related to the neuro-pediatric consultation of a child with CP
Therefore, the relevance of extending BP models with the knowledge dimension is manifold:
1. Enhance the localization and identification of the crucial knowledge mobilized and produced by
the critical activities: (i) Illustrating the knowledge and its sources that are necessary for the execution
of BP activities and are generated, created and/or modified as a results of activities. (ii) Illustrating the
knowledge localization (where knowledge can be obtained and clearly stated) as well as experts who
hold the (tacit) knowledge. (iii) Illustrating transfers of knowledge between sources, and among
activities as well as the different opportunities of knowledge conversion. (iv) Defining the knowledge
that is being captured or obtained from specific sources. (v) Giving an opportunity to improve
understanding about the knowledge usefulness, validity, and relevance for particular activities in a
SBP. (vi) Possibility to evaluate the amount of lost knowledge if a person-owner of knowledge- leaves
the organization.
2. A deeply characterizing of the identified knowledge to determine which ones are more crucial to
be exploited: (i) Illustrating the nature and degree of formalization of knowledge. (ii) Illustrating the
organizational coverage of knowledge, their quality, etc.
5 Conclusion and Perspectives
In this paper, we have addressed the problematic of localization and identification of crucial
knowledge. Therefore, we proposed a new multi-perspective meta-model of BPs representation, called
« BPM4KI » allowing a rigorous specification and rich and expressive graphical representation of
SBPs to improve the identification of knowledge mobilized and created by these processes. We
focused, specifically, on the description of the «Knowledge Perspective» needed for performing SBP.
This dimension modeled in the form of ontological conceptual pattern, is semantically rich and well-
based on «core» domain ontologies. Furthermore, we illustrated the application of some offered
concepts on a model of medical care process, using the BPMN 2.0 standard. There are several open
issues in this paper that we plan to address in the future to deepen the so-called problematic of
identification of crucial knowledge that is mobilized by SBPs. Further work is underway to deepen the
characterization of concepts relating to the notion of Sensitive Business Process and propose
semantically rich and consensual definitions of concepts and dimensions necessary for the
characterization and modeling of SBPs. In the medium term, we plan to offer a rigorous scientific
approach to help implement an extension of BPMN 2.0 notation to integrate core BPM4KI concepts,
and have a rich and expressive representation of SBPs.
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