Visualizing the Bias of Enterprise Metamodels towards Nuanced Concepts

In Enterprise Modeling, we use several languages for designing, analyzing, and communicating the different domains of an enterprise. Two important criteria for choosing a domainspecific language are its appropriateness to the requirements of the enterprise, as well as the accuracy of the language in describing the domain at hand. However, in some business domains, core concepts --such as Capability, Service, and Value-- represent constructs that have different (and often conflicting) definitions and interpretations among the literature. In this context, the bias of a language is the preference for a theory, i.e. a particular interpretation of a concept. Currently, there is no explicit way of assessing and communicating this bias, and thus it remains difficult to assess the appropriateness and accuracy of a language for a particular purpose. In this paper, we provide a method for visual comparison of this bias with regard to the Capability concept, comparing three theories and three modeling languages where this concept is pivotal.