Business-Information Systems Professional Differences: Bridging the Business Rule Gap

Group differences have often been cited between information system professionals and junctional-business professionals. Now perspectives of what constitutes business rules must be added to the list of group differences. In many organizations,junctional business professionals and information systems professionals disagree as to what constitutes a business rule. Functional personnel express business rules in terms of how business processes are defined and constrained. Alternatively, information system professionals view business rules in terms of the constraints that the rules place on manipulating the organization's data resources. Each of these perspectives is essentialfor the effective management ofafirm' s resources, but each perspective-independent of the otherfails to acknowledge the interreliance of business processes and the information systems that support them. This research develops a theoretical basis for this gap based on structural learning theory's definition of directive rule types: problem definition rules and solution rules. Structural learning theory is used to illustrate how these perspectives can be bridged. Based on the resulting model, the paper discusses the knowledge, skills and abilities that information systems professionals must have to enable bridging the gap.