Are Conceptual Models Concept Models?

The conceptual modelling community has no clear, agreed semantics for its models; or more plainly, there is no general agreement on what the models model. One mainstream proposal is that they model concepts, but there is no clear semantics for this; no clear description of what concepts are and how they relate to their domain. This creates theoretical problems; for example, it is difficult to build accurate meta-models, as these have to encompass the semantic structure. It also creates practical problems; practitioners will approach building a model of the concept of a business differently from modelling the business itself. We aim to exploit research undertaken in philosophy to construct a framework that classifies the broad semantic options. Using this we identify two major options: concept-mediated and direct-domain semantics. We focus on the concept-mediated option and examine how philosophy has analysed what a concept is; identifying three main options and exploring the issues they raise. While not wishing to advocate choices at this stage, we note that the concept-mediated view - in particular, the version prevalent in conceptual modelling, that concepts are representations – faces serious challenges as a practical semantics for modelling and languages.

Shifting the ontological foundations of accounting’s conceptual scheme

The purpose of this paper is to establish the nature of the need for a new accounting conceptual scheme and provide the framework for taking a managed approach to this change. This paper firstly reviews the nature of the need for a radical shift in the foundations and framework of accounting’s conceptual scheme. It touches upon how the existing uses of ontological analysis within accounting information systems research do not address this need. It then outlines how a more philosophical approach to ontological analysis provides a process for starting the shift in the foundation. And illustrates how the process will work with some examples.