THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS FOR CONCEPTUAL MODELING IN INFORMATION-SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT

Conceptual modelling in information systems development is the creatio n of an enterprise model for the purpose of designing the information system. It is an important aspect of systems analysis. The value of a conceptual modelling language (CML) lies in its ability to capture the relevant knowledge about a domain. To determine which constructs shou ld be included in a CML it would be beneficial to use some theoretical guidelines. However, this is usually not done. The purpose of this pa per is to promote the idea that theories related to human knowledge ca n be used as foundations for conceptual modelling in systems developme nt. We suggest the use of ontology, concept theory, and speech act the ory. These approaches were chosen because: (1) they deal with importan t and different aspects relevant to conceptual modelling and (2) they have already been used in the context of systems analysis. For each ap proach we discuss: the rationale for its use, its principles, its appl ication to conceptual modelling, and its limitations. We also demonstr ate the concepts of the three approaches by analysing an example. The analysis also serves to show how each approach deals with different as pects of modelling.