A context-based approach to support virtual enterprises

This paper introduces a novel approach to support processes within generic platforms for virtual enterprises (VEs): the context-based approach. The main advantage of the approach lies in its generic capacity, which allows the users to define processes flexibility and to support their own virtual enterprises. Constructs such as contexts and sub-contexts are used to define processes and can be stored in a context repository. We focus on demonstrating how our approach can be used to steer the cooperation between market players forming and running a VE. In this paper, we also discuss the phenomenon of extra-context logic and propose an application case using this information to support user interactions within virtual enterprises. The extra-context of an application is in particular interesting, when the environment of the application is agile. Extra-context information can be used by a wizard to help integrating supported processes within an PVE with an application beyond it.