Towards a meta model for describing communication: How to address interoperability on a pragmatic level

The developments in the ICT led companies to strive to make parts of the business transaction electronic and raised again the issue of interoperability. Although interoperability between computer systems has been widely addressed in literature, the concept of interoperability between organizations is still to a large extent unexplored. Standards are claimed to help achieving interoperability. However, experience with the implementation of EDI standards shows that many EDI implementation projects led to technical solutions with unclear business benefits. New standards are currently being developed, however their implementation can also lead again to purely technical solution, if the social context is not taken sufficiently into account. In this paper we address the problem on how to identify interoperability problems on a pragmatic level that can occur between organizations that want to carry out business transactions electronically. We also point out that, in order to identify interoperability problems on a pragmatic level, it is necessary to capture the communication requirements of the business parties and to evaluate to what extent a standard is capable to meet these requirements. To perform that evaluation we develop a meta model for describing communication. The meta model is based on theory of speech-act and communicative actions. The use of the meta model to identify interoperability problems on a pragmatic level is illustrated with an example.