Modeling Participant Perspectives in an IOS Environment: Exploring the Potential of Soft Systems Tools

This paper investigates the importance of incorporating participant perspectives within an interorganizational system. The methodology of soft systems is considered a potentially appropriate approach for investigating these perspectives. The research findings illustrate various factors that prove relevant in the incorporation and consideration of participant perspectives in an interorganizational environment. Specifically, soft systems tools provide a consistent method of representing participant perspectives by enabling the designer to follow the same path for separate entities while respecting the individual nature of such perspectives. In addition, the use of these tools provides the designer with a method of building an incremental model, which incorporates participant perspectives, upon which to base the interorganizational system.