No abstract

Attempts to use WIRS 3 data to assess the impact of HRM and specialist personnel management have produced implausible, inconclusive and contradictory results-demonstrating the severe limitations of the new macro-survey approach to industrial relations research. Yet macrosurveys threaten to become the dominant methodology. Imaginative insights, with practical implications, will not be achieved in this way. A major reorientation of research effort is needed before it is too late. Given its long tradition, of attempting to be both original and useful, British IR research deserves something better.

Applying object orientation to the task of modeling the value-added processes of

The Resource-Event-Agent (REA) enterprise model is a widely accepted framework for the design of the accountability infrastructure of enterprise information systems. Policy-level specifications define constraints and guidelines under which an enterprise operates, and they are an extension to the REA enterprise model, adding the “what should, could, or must be” to the “what is.” This paper aims both at comprehensive understanding of policy-level definitions as part of REA enterprise systems and at understanding of the semantic constructs that enable such definitions. We first explore two distinctive semantic abstractions essential to policy-level specifications: typification and grouping. The typification abstraction links instances of an object class to concepts for which they are concrete realizations, while the grouping abstraction aggregates objects into collections. We next present a number of patterns for the semantic modeling of policies. Following, we look at policy-level applications for REA enterprise information systems. We explore type and grouping definitions for the REA primitives (resource, event, agent) and discuss enterprise applications for three different kinds of policy definitions: knowledge-intensive descriptions, validation rules, and target descriptions. Our discussion of specific enterprise applications includes internal control applications (e.g., limit checks), variance analysis based on standard specifi-cations (e.g., bills of materials), and budgeting applications.

The REA model was first conceptualized in a paper for the 1982 The Accounting Review as a framework for building accounting systems in a shared data environment, both within enterprises and between enterprises. The model's core feature was an object pattern consisting of two mirror-image constellations that represented semantically the input and output components of a business process. The REA acronym derives from that pattern's structure, which consisted of economic Resources, economic Events, and economic Agents. Simultaneous with its research publication, REA began to be used as a framework for teaching accounting information systems (AIS), originally at Michigan State University and then gradually at other colleges and universities. In its extended form, the REA model integrates the teaching of accounting transaction structures, commitment and business policy specification, business process engineering, and enterprise value chain construction. As of 2003, REA modeling is used in a variety of AIS courses and featured in a variety of AIS textbooks, both in the United States and internationally.