A Framework of Views on Service Networks Models

Interdependency is a constant of business. Businesses form complex networks for the exchanging of goods and services. Service networks models represent the interconnections among companies, their parts and individuals in terms of services that are provided and consumed. Due to the size of nowadays service networks, their models tend to grow very large. The effective management of service network models requires methods for limiting the amount of data presented on the basis of what is needed through

views

. We identify a hierarchy of views on service network models, namely offering-centric views, participant views and multilateral views. The offering-centric views focus on one service that is offered by one participant. Participant views present the entirety of the data related to one participant. Multilateral views represent the data about a set of participants. Additionally, we investigate the correlations between these views and the mechanisms for aggregating and projecting them from each other and from service network models.