Review of Language-Action Perspective (LAP)

Book chapter titled "A Review of the Language-Action Perspective (LAP) Approach in Information Systems Research" is accepted to be published as a book chapter in Handbook of Research on Contemporary Theoretical Models in Information Systems.

ABSTRACT

The Language-Action Perspective (LAP) provides an alternative foundation for analyzing and designing effective information systems. The fundamental principle of the LAP approach is people perform actions through communication; therefore, the role of information systems is to support such communications among people to achieve business goals. Basing on linguistic and communicative theories, the LAP approach provides guidance for researchers to gain understanding on how people use communication to coordinate their activities to achieve common goal. Web services, a leading technology to develop information systems, aims to support communication among services to achieve business goals. The close match between fundamental principles of web services and the LAP approach suggests that researchers can use the LAP approach as a theoretical guidance to analyze and resolve web service problems. This chapter provides a comprehensive starting point for researchers, practitioners, and students to gain understanding of the LAP approach.

Paper accepted at the Design Science Research 2008 Conference

Paper Title: Designing Enterprise Integration Solutions - Effectively

Abstract: The design of large and complex enterprise integration solutions is a difficult task because designers must respond not only to the ‘requirements’ from a diverse set of users, but also because a successful design outcome must respond to the ‘constraints’ provided by the current set of legacy applications. The problem, therefore, belongs to a category of problems where design knowledge is difficult to articulate and reuse. In particular, the nature and form of knowledge for conceptual design of systems integration solutions continues to be a concern. In this paper, we investigate whether design knowledge in the form of patterns can be reused to develop systems integration solutions, and whether such reuse leads to more effective design outcomes. The research follows Design Science guidelines in that we describe a research artifact, and evaluate it to assess whether it meets the intended goals. The results indicate that approaches to facilitate reuse of conceptual design knowledge are feasible in the domain of enterprise integration, and that such reuse does, in fact, lead to more effective design solutions.

Co-authors: Sandeep Purao and Russell R. Barton

Link to DESRIST 2008 Conference

Paper accepted at the Conceptual Modeling (ER) 2007 Conference

Paper Title: Exploring Alternatives for Representing and Accessing Design Knowledge about Enterprise Integration

Abstract: Enterprise integration refers to solutions that facilitate meaningful interactions among heterogeneous legacy applications. The scale, complexity and specificity of most enterprise integration efforts mean that design knowledge for enterprise integration has resisted codification. Important exceptions to this include: use of Business Process Modeling (BPM) techniques to understand integration requirements; and Enterprise Integration Patterns (EIP), which present designers with abstract descriptions of recurring design tactics for integrating applications. The two, however, can be at odds. BPM encourages the control flow perspective; whereas EIP codifies an operational perspective. Mapping between the two to develop coherent solutions, therefore, tends to be problematic. To bridge the gap, we suggest an alternative that builds on the theory of speech acts. We develop essential components of such an alternative, including a re-representation of EIP as structures of speech acts, a characterization of tasks in BPM with action types, and a mapping between speech acts and action types. The components are accompanied by inference rules that produce a mapping between sets of tasks in a business process, and structures of speech acts as integration patterns. Through a short industry case, we demonstrate usefulness of the proposed alternative.

Co-Authored with Sandeep Purao.

Link to the conference ER 2007

Paper accepted at the IEEE Services 2007 PhD Symposium on Service Computing

Paper Title:
A Study of Language-Action Perspective as a Theoretical Framework for Web Services

Abstract
This dissertation contributes to the services science discipline by examining appropriateness of Language-Action Perspective (LAP) as a theoretical framework for web services, the technology component of services science. This research consists of three inter-dependent studies. The first study (completed) investigates whether LAP constructs can describe and explain the web services architecture. Findings from this study indicate that there is a lack of mechanisms to generate conversation specifications that guide interactions among services. Conversation specifications are crucial for developing large-scaled enterprise integration solutions using web services. The second study (work-in-progress) builds on this finding and demonstrates the appropriateness of LAP constructs to access design knowledge to develop web service solutions for enterprise integration. The third study (work-in-progress) evaluates the usefulness of LAP constructs to develop effective web service solutions (artifact developed in the second study).

Link to the PhD Symposium

Paper accepted at the Services Computing Conference (SCC) 2007

Paper Title:
Towards A Theoretical Foundation for Web Services – The Language-Action Perspective (LAP) Approach

Abstract:
The purpose of this paper is to stimulate a discourse and search for appropriate theoretical foundations for web services. The complexity of web services technology demands such a foundation. A theoretical foundation can provide adequate guidance not only to accelerate research related to web services, but can also promote their acceptance. Based on an extensive review of prior work in SCC and ICWS, we identify theories implicitly used for web services research, and propose the Language-Action Perspective (LAP) as an important and necessary complement to these. Our proposal follows the observation that there is a close match between the core concerns of web services and the LAP approach. Our ongoing work is aimed at validating appropriateness of LAP as a theoretical framework for web services through empirical research.

Co-Authored with Sandeep Purao.

Link to conference page: SCC 2007

Language-Action Perspective(LAP) summary

Association for Information Systems maintains a repository containing description of various theories used in Information Systems field.

I had submitted summary of LAP description to repository editors. Summary has been accepted and added in the repository.

Below is the link for LAP summary in the repository
http://www.istheory.yorku.ca/languageactionperspective.htm

Homepage for repository
http://www.istheory.yorku.ca/default.htm

Please do send me your comments, suggestions, additions or any modifications that you think needs to be made in LAP summary.

Information Systems Frontiers Journal paper

Finally! My Information Systems Frontiers Journal paper is published.

Here is the link to access the paper from Publisher web site
http://www.springerlink.com/content/r282201465372g67/

Title of the paper:
A theoretical investigation of the emerging standards for web services

Abstract:
Currently, standards for web services are being developed via three different initiatives (W3C, Semantic web services and ebXML). To the best of our knowledge, no theoretical perspectives underlie these standardization efforts. Without the benefit of a strong theoretical basis, the results, within and across these initiatives, have remained piecemeal. We suggest ‘Language–Action Theories’ as a plausible perspective that can effectively define, assess and refine web services standards. In this paper, we first investigate the existing initiatives to identify commonalities that point to theories of ‘Language–Action’ as an appropriate theoretical basis for web services standards. Next, we adapt work from these theories to develop a comprehensive reference framework for understanding web services standards. Finally, we use this reference framework to assess the three initiatives, and analyze the findings to provide insights for future development and refinement of web services standards.

Paper accepted at the ICSOC PhD Symposium

Paper Title:
A Study of Language-Action Perspective as a Theoretical Framework for Web Services

Abstract:
This dissertation contributes to services science discipline by examining appropriateness of Language-Action Perspective (LAP) as a theoretical framework for web services, the technology component of services science. This study is conducted through three essays. The first (completed) investigates whether LAP constructs can describe and explain the web services architecture. Findings from this essay indicate that there is lack of mechanisms to generate conversation policies that guide interactions between applications. Conversation polices are crucial for developing large-scaled enterprise integration solutions using web services. The second (work-in-progress) builds on this finding. This essay demonstrates appropriateness of LAP constructs to structure design knowledge to develop web services solutions for enterprise integration. The third (work-in-progress) evaluates usefulness of LAP structured design knowledge to develop web services solutions (artifact developed in the second essay).

Link to PhD Symposium
http://infolab.uvt.nl/phd-icsoc06/

CACM special issue on Language-Action Perspective (LAP)

My dissertation aim is to show that Language-Action Perspective (LAP) is appropriate theoretical framework for web services.

LAP has been around for two decades but it has not reached mainstream organization computing. It is not part of teaching curriculum in universities is mere evidence of it.

Web service provides an opportunity for this community to reach mainstream. I explore this possibility in my dissertation.

CACM Special issue on LAP which appeared in May 2006 show cases some of works of prominent LAP researchers.

Link for table of contents of CACM special issue on LAP.