Reference ontology for business models

ii The emergence of the internet paved the way for companies to search for new ways of doing their business electronically. These new technological advancements mark the beginning of a new class of business information systems: e-commerce systems. Today there is a growing demand for interoperability of such systems to make it possible for companies to operate together to offer their services to the customers without boundaries and to increase their profits. As a step towards this, we propose the Reference Ontology based on three well-established business-modelling ontologies: BMO, REA and e3-value. The Reference Ontology represents the synthesis of concepts used in these three ontologies. Furthermore, to strengthen its position as a business modelling ontology, we introduced a number of new concepts, primarily related to transfer of resources between various business stakeholders. Our principal goal in thi