Ontological foundations for capability and competence modeling in enterprise architecture

To properly understand organizational adaptation and innovation, it is critical to understand the capability emergence phenomenon, i.e., how the capabilities of a (social-technical) system emerge from its parts. However, for this, we should be able to explain: (i) how the various capabilities of system parts interact, and (ii) how systems, their structure, behavior, and properties account for capability emergence. This phenomenon has been extensively studied by system science researchers, who have been influenced by General System Theory (GST). Their research emphasizes the interrelationships of technical and social components within organizations. Using notations such as ArchiMate and UAF, Enterprise Architecture (EA) and System Engineering (SE) investigate organizational structures and capabilities. Nevertheless, there is a lack of guidelines regarding modeling capability emergence in these notations, which raises unanswered questions. In this work, we propose an ontology driven representation to model capabilities and their emergence by combining insights from Systems Engineering, General System Theory, and System Science. Our representation takes into account the interaction between human and technical capabilities within organizations, with a focus on organizational and human capabilities such as competences and skills. We introduce three well-founded ontologies, based on the Unified Foundational Ontology (UFO), to ground this representation: (i) a disposition ontology; (ii) a capability ontology; and (iii) a competences ontology. The work is based on disposition theories and seeks to explain how capabilities emerge by taking into account systemic notions such as components, functions, behavior, and connections. Adopting different viewpoints such as composition, structure, properties, and function, Bunge’s “systemist” model is primarily used to provide a thorough understanding of the emergence phenomenon in systems. We assess the applicability of the suggested representation first with a case study addressing the modeling of Spotify’s “Agile Coaching” capability. We thereby demonstrate the applicability of the proposed capability representation in capturing a real-world setting. An additional evaluation is carried out via an empirical survey that involves academics and practitioners. In line with the
Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), we survey the perceptions of participants concerning the representation’s ease of use, usefulness, and intention of use.