The authors wish to thank Patricia Everaert (Ghent University) and two anonymous reviewers of the 2 nd Int’l Workshop on Conceptual Modeling Quality (IWCMQ’03) for their useful comments and suggestions on previous versions of this paper. D/2004/7012/05

This paper presents a tentative model of user beliefs and attitudes towards conceptual models applying the ideas of Theory of Reasoned Action (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975) in a conceptual modeling context. We focus on users perceptions of conceptual model quality and investigate the relations between perceived semantic quality and perceived pragmatic quality measures. Given the growing awareness among researchers and practitioners about the importance of high-quality conceptual modeling, it is surprisingly that there are no formal measures to assess the perceived semantic quality of conceptual schemas. Therefore we address this need and present a robust and validated multi-item measurement instrument to evaluate the perceived semantic quality of conceptual schemas. We followed a rigorous empirical development process to ensure the validity and reliability of the proposed measurement instrument. Once this was accomplished, it was possible to empirically test the proposed user beliefs and attitudes model. The conducted experiment confirmed the proposed relations of the user beliefs and attitudes model. It was shown that perceived semantic quality had a direct effect on beliefs as perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use and also indirectly affects the attitudes of conceptual model users.- 1-

Over the past ten years, many organizations, both large and small, have implemented enterprise resource planning systems or enterprise systems. The motivation behind these investments is to improve organizational efficiency, effectiveness, and ultimately performance. Underlying the expectation of performance increases is the belief that information can be captured and disseminated throughout the organization more quickly to help individuals do their jobs better by making better decisions. While the return on these investments is certainly expected, understanding how both the organization and individuals within these organizations are affected and how the benefits will actually materialize from an interorganizational perspective has received little attention. The purpose of this discussion is to highlight the largely ignored behavioral impacts of enterprise systems implementation and integration and to suggest ways to improve the validity and generalizability of field research through method triangulation. This discussion advocates that the contemporary enterprise systems research could learn much from the management accounting research discipline as it searches for greater meaning and rigor in its research approaches. Specifically, this paper suggests that future research on enterprise systems should include (1) experimentation that focuses primarily on judgment and decision making at the individual level and improvements in organizational performance, and (2) triangulation methods that integrate case research, surveys, and cross-sectional field studies.

Abstract. This paper presents a study evaluating the REA-patterns-based approach to enterprise information modelling. We replicated an earlier experiment demonstrating that business students perform a comprehension task more accurately when they recognize REA pattern occurrences in entityrelationship diagrams and that they perceive such diagrams as easier to use than informationally equivalent diagrams with no apparent REA pattern occurrences. These findings were confirmed in the replication, but contrary to the original experiment also efficiency gains in terms of faster understanding were demonstrated. Furthermore, the original experiment was extended by testing a more complete model of user attitudes. It was shown that, after completing the comprehension task, students perceived diagrams with REA pattern occurrences as easier to interpret and more useful, and were more satisfied with them. But somewhat surprisingly, students also perceived such diagrams as more semantically expressive, even if they were informationally equivalent to the control diagrams. It was further shown that perceived semantic expressiveness is related to perceived usefulness, but not to perceived ease of interpretation. The effect of perceived semantic expressiveness on user information satisfaction is not direct, but mediated by perceived usefulness.

Abstract. This paper presents a laboratory experiment that evaluates the REA approach for modelling enterprise-wide accounting information systems. REA is a pattern-driven conceptual modelling approach that is based on the Resource-Event-Agent semantic model of a company’s accountability infrastructure. Using a between-subjects experiment with business students we investigated whether Entity-Relationship (ER) diagrams that show a REA pattern occurrence are better understood than informationally equivalent ER diagrams that do not show a REA pattern occurrence. The results of our experiment indicate that students develop a more accurate understanding of the business processes and policies modelled when they recognize the REA structure of accounting information in ER diagrams. Students also perceive such diagrams to be easier to use when performing model comprehension and validation tasks. The experiment further showed that the number of information systems courses taken by students has a significant effect on task performance. The number of accounting courses completed before the experiment did not affect the understanding of business process models. The paper concludes by discussing some implications for Accounting Information Systems

The authors wish to thank Prof. Patrick Van Kenhove (Ghent University) for his useful comments. D/2004/7012/43 Construction and Pre-Test of a Semantic Expressiveness Measure for Conceptual Models Abstract. One quality attributed to McCarthy’s Resources-Events-Agents (REA) accounting model is semantic expressiveness. Compared to accounting models without a semantic orientation like the Debit-Credit-Account (DCA) model, the REA model is claimed to better represent the economic phenomena underlying an accounting system. The alleged benefits of this increased semantic expressiveness include easier integration with representations of non-accounting information and better user understanding of accounting systems. Dunn and Grabski (2000) have empirically compared the semantic expressiveness of accounting systems based on the REA and DCA models. They showed that accounting students perceived the REA system as more semantically expressive. Furthermore, they demonstrated that higher perceived semantic expressiveness (PSE) leads to higher accuracy in accounting information retrieval tasks. To measure the PSE of a system they used a single 7-point Likert scale assertion, which was applied after performing an information retrieval task. As ideas for future research they

Sound conceptual models are commonly considered as an important factor for successful information systems (IS) development. Due to inaccurate conceptual specifications, IS projects can be delayed or even fail. Thus, thorough evaluation of models is a major concern in IS research. Consequently, theoretical models are required which elucidate the conditions for the successful evaluability of conceptual models. However, IS literature only provides little insights about the prerequisites of effective evaluation. Systematic investigations on the evaluability of conceptual models are missing. Therefore, is paper aims at two research results. Firstly, based on a comprehensive literature review we propose a theoretical model of perceived evaluability. This theoretical model rests on the influence of domain knowledge and the perceived comprehensibility of conceptual models as its two main impact factors. Secondly, to prepare an empirical