D2.3: Models

 

Functions, position and roles

Description

Function, position and role relates to the formal or informal “position and role” that the person is fulfilling as member within an organisation such as an enterprise or governmental service, and to the tasks in which this person is engaged. 

Examples of attributes

 

1. Job title (CEO, Director, …) 

2. Title (Dr., Prof., Her Majesty, …) 

3. Tasks 

4. Working activity state. (instantaneous information) 

5. Informal role (and authority), castes (see social characteristics) 

 

Application domains

Work appears the most obvious domain in which functions, position and roles intervene. However, many other domains are also concerned by this facet such as Justice (role related to authority), commerce (defining responsibilities) and even leisure (for instance in a Massively Multiplayer Online Game). 

Relevant standards

For formal roles, HR-XML defines for instance the slot JobAndPosition. The Job and Position Header specifications are high-level entities that may be used within a variety of human resource management (HRM) models and business processes. Both entities may be categorised into fragments such as Duties and Responsibilities, Work Policy, Requirements, and Work Schedule. 

Global Justice Extensible Markup (JXDM) defines different types of persons such as: EnforcementOfficial, JudicialOfficial, CaseOfficial, Juror, MissingPerson, RegisteredOffender, Subject, Witness. Each of them share some attributes, but also includes a set of specific attributes. 

Finally, as described in the next section, the role can also be informal. For instance a person in an organisation or in a group can have an authority over other persons (such as leadership) that may be implicit and not appear in the formalised structure of the organisation. 

 

 

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