Abstract. Today many computational organizational models exist and the complexity and numbers of these models is growing in time, but many models are only focusing on one aspect like communication, social networks or cognition, while not being aware of their ‘Semiotic Umwelt ’ [18, 19]. This paper explains how organizational semiotics can contribute to implement norms and social constructs [10] as part of the decision-structure and social awareness of actors in a multi-actor system, based on the cognitive architecture ACT-R [1]. 1.

For many large scale companies, especially those operating in future deregulation markets, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is becoming an increasingly important business success factor. After a short introduction to issues in Customer Relationship Management, this paper highlights facets and experiences from a CRM project, describes our view of the role of Data Warehousing for CRM purposes and takes a critical position concerning the roles which technology vs. design, implementation and use play in applying a CRM philosophy in corporate business. We will thereby focus on the Data Warehousingrelated analytical part of CRM, although the experiences we are going to present are not limited to this field.

A number of recent developments in software engineering --- from agile methods to aspect-oriented programming to design patterns to good enough software --- share a number of common attributes. These developments avoid a unifying theme or plan, focus on negotiation between different concerns, and exhibit a high level of context sensitivity. We argue that these developments are evidence of a postmodern turn in software engineering. In this paper, we survey a number of these developments and describe their potential implications for the practice of conceptual modelling.

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Research Article Identifiers — such as personal identification numbers, student numbers, and license numbers — are used for identifying individual objects and constitute an important part of the information infrastructures of organizations and society. The design, choice, assignment, withdrawal, and replacement of identifiers are significant economic and political issues with more profound consequences than are perhaps commonly perceived. Use of identifiers can result in significant costs because they may include descriptive information, because an inappropriate identifier may be chosen for the object in question, or because there may be a lack of institutional control of the identifier. The objective of this paper is to elaborate on these problems by explaining the identifier construct from a technical, institutional, ontological, and information infrastructural perspective. Based on this understanding, we provide guidelines for how identifiers should be designed, chosen, replaced, and controlled. Accordingly, we address the practical need for improved design principles relating to the increasingly important infrastructural character of computerized information systems that stems from the importance of appropriate identifiers for information infrastructures and society as a whole. In order to understand the role, function, and meaning of identifiers, it is important to acknowledge that the identifier is fundamentally a linguistic construct used when referring to socially constructed institutional objects. Institutional objects are symbolic entities that represent institutional and brute facts, which are the results of human actions.

Abstract. This paper explains and demonstrates emergence of organisational behaviour as a social cognitive mechanism, i.e. ones own behaviour at the cognitive level is influenced by interaction with others at the social level. Besides the importance of understanding how behaviour evolves, it is probably more crucial to control emergence or enforce desired behaviour. In our research we demonstrate this by implementing social constructs as regulators or stimuli of behaviour. The paper discusses a social cognitive architecture ACT-RBot or in short RBot 4 which is based on ACT-R. RBot inherits the cognitive architecture (production system) of ACT-R but provides also a mechanism of social constructs as meta-productions that operates as a social (control) layer. The architecture is implemented in software agents who ‘live ‘ in a discrete event simulation environment allowing them to interact and exchange signs. The combination of RBot and a simulation environment provides observation of behaviour between agents (at the social level), but also introspection of the experiences of the individual agent stored in memory of its cognitive architecture. We describe two simulation experiments that demonstrate the working of the social cognitive architecture. The first experiment shows that emergence is present at the cognitive (individual) and social level (interaction). The second experiment adds social constructs and authority that allows for (more) control over emergence. 1

Abstract. Recently I presented my doctoral thesis about process determination for business analysis. I am now a post-doc researcher aiming for the next step in my research career. In this paper I am elaborating on two research areas for further research based upon research performed during my research education and interests of today. These areas concerns an integrative view on business processes and information systems in organisations and the effects of performing change analysis as a part of changing organisations. 1

Information systems as socio-technical or sociomaterial systems