Analysing Enterprise Ontology and Its Suitability for Model-Based Software Development

Enterprise Ontology (EO) is a well-known theory that captures the essence of an organisation. It is rooted in the Language Action Perspective that acknowledges language as the primary dimension of human cooperative activity. This theory, proposed by Jan Dietz, provides the foundations for designing and engineering of enterprises seen as social information systems. In this paper, we analyse some fundamental aspects of EO using an adapted framework for comparing methodologies. We present also a systematic review of the literature to find how EO and its modelling methodology are used to develop enterprise software applications.