How can a protocol to reach a fair and transparent agreement between stakeholders embedded in a context of conflict of interest be developed?

How can a protocol to reach a fair and transparent agreement between stakeholders embedded in a context of conflict of interest be developed?

Master’s thesis

Faculty of Economics and Business, University Groningen Supply Chain Management

Deadline: 30-10-2016 Supervisor: Dr. H. Balsters Second supervisor: Dr. H. Broekhuis

Words: 15,081 Bernie Schlepers J.B.Schlepers@student.rug.nl

Acknowledgement

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate how to reach an agreement between stakeholders, embedded in a context with conflicts of interests, that is perceived as fair and transparent.

Design / Methodology / Approach – An exploratory in-depth design science research was utilized at a governmental organization. Data consisted of 15 semi-structured interviews, field observations as well as evaluated data records within the analyzed organizations’ supply chains. The data were analyzed by means of coding quotes and by use of the regulative cycle of van Strien.

Findings – In the practical case, the stakeholders perceived a protocol especially as fair when: (1) Stakeholders can rely on each other, this is translated as the effectiveness, are the stakeholders actual execute what they had promised. (2) With negative experiences in previous steps it is impossible to develop a protocol, it’s all about honesty and trust. (3) All the possibilities a stakeholder has must be mentioned in the protocol, not only the best practice for a certain stakeholder. And they perceived it as transparent when: (1) The protocol is publicly available and written in the language of the end-user. (2) There are no hidden documents and process steps anymore inside the SC. (3) Stakeholders want commitment throughout the SC, this is multiple-sided.

Value – This paper is one of the first that used BPMN for creating a new protocol and not just for investigating processes. This research focuses in particular on creating a protocol, that must be fair and transparent, in a complex environment. The combination of creating fairness and transparency throughout a supply chain with the use of BPMN is not done yet in literature. Keywords – Conflicts of interest, stakeholder perspectives, fairness, transparency, design science, regulative cycle, business process modelling notation.

Content

2.3.1 Accountability and Commitment 2.3.2 Sharing information

2.4 The link with a protocol 2.4.1. The link with fairness 2.4.2 The link with transparency 2.5 Summary

3. Methodology 3.1 Research context 3.2 Regulative cycle

3.2.1 Problem identification 3.2.2 Diagnosis of the problem 3.2.3 Data collection procedure 3.2.4 Validation 3.3 Data analysis 3.4 Analysis of Validation 4. Findings 4.1 Stakeholders analyses 4.2 Validation

4.2.1 Validation with Company B (B) 4.2.2 Validation with company C (C) 4.2.3 Validation with company A (A) 4.2.4 Validation with the Inhabitants 4.3 Redesigned protocol

4.4 Data analysis

4.4.1 Fairness during development 4.4.2 Transparency during development 5. Conclusion

7. References Appendix

Appendix A Process of creating the design problem Appendix B Inhabitants

1. Introduction

A protocol can be defined as an agreement between different stakeholders about the work procedures, to strive towards common goals (Seok and Nof, 2014). In a SC where inhabitants are influenced and the situation becomes more politically affected, reaching an agreement that satisfies all stakeholders’ objectives is more difficult (Ansell and Gash, 2008). Throughout such a SC the interests of the different stakeholders are not economically driven but rather socially and politically driven. Therefore, conflicts of interest arise in the SC, which is the reason why creating a protocol in such situations is often burdensome (Amza, Cox, Dwarkadas, Jin, Rajamani and Zwaenepoel (1999). In recent years, the use of business process modeling notation (BPMN) as a tool for illustrating protocols has increased (Geambasu, 2012), but not for creating a protocol. When different stakeholders in a SC have to work towards an agreement for collaboration, fairness plays an important role (Abdullah and Musa, 2014). Fairness can be defined, according to Katok and Pavlov (2013), as a way of creating trust, reducing incomplete information distribution and creating equality between the different stakeholders in a SC. Furthermore, according to Johnsen and Normann (2004), fairness is also considered as one of the most important factors to control a SC with different stakeholder perspectives. They argue that there commonly is a lack of trust between stakeholders, especially when inhabitants are the end-users. Johnsen and Normann (2004) describe the arena as a complex environment where the huge number of objectives lead to different practices. Taking into account complex relationships between tiers in a SC, where the environment is continuously changing due to different political and social developments, fairness can be considered as the most important factor, since it may combine different stakeholders’ perspectives into one. As described by Ronen (2008), despite severe conflicts of interest being present in a SC or organization, those conflicts may be mitigated as long as the agreement between the different perspectives is perceived as fair. It is therefore crucial to identify where the conflicts are present in the different aspects of the stakeholders’ views.

The conflicts of interests that arise during the creation of a protocol will be affected by fairness and transparency. The researchers Wagner, Mainardes, Alves and Raposo (2011) confirm this statement and outline the need for further research about the practical theoretical application of the ongoing conflict of interests. Based on these perspectives and concepts, this research is focused on a way of managing these conflicts of interest between different stakeholders. The scope of this research is therefore based on the following question: how can a protocol to reach a fair and transparent agreement between stakeholders embedded in a context of conflict of interest be developed?

An exemplary context underlying this research can be found in the Netherlands, where conflicts of interest between different stakeholders in a SC are created as a result of gas extraction. In recent years, the amount of earthquakes in the province of Groningen has drastically increased. These earthquakes are caused by soil subsidence resulting from gas extraction in the earthquake area. As many residents in the area suffer from the consequences of those earthquakes, the subject has become an important topic in political as well as environmental debates (rtvnoord, 14 september 2016: Gas extraction debate). Earthquakes cause severe damage to buildings and the landscape both during as well as after the tremors. Furthermore, house owners in the area also experience emotional distress because of the uncertainty of safety.

The problem is not unique to Groningen, as similar examples can be found in the United States and Canada. According to Muehlenbachs, Spiller and Timmins (2014) there is a growing field of literature about the relationship between the impact of gas extraction activities and the value of real estate. They argue that the perceptions of risk and benefits vary with a variety of factors, namely, the density of drilling activity, environmental activism, economic activity, unemployment levels, and urban density. Already in 1974, Blomquist described a negative relationship between the vicinity of properties to an energy plant and the property prices of that area. In 2011, Davis conducted another study about this relationship. Davis’ (2011) research unraveled the negative effect an energy plant has on the particular area’s environment.

lawsuit concluded that all damage caused by the earthquakes is the financial responsibility of NAM. In addition to the visible physical damage, there is also invisible damage, such as the depreciation of real estate values as well as house owners’ emotional damage resulting from the stress and high-scale uncertainty. Previous research by Bakker (2015), van Bekkum (2015) and Kamps (2015) has aimed at designing an information system compensating the depreciation of real estate in the province of Groningen, taking into account pricing models and different stakeholder perspectives. As they already described extensively, the determination of real estate prices is a costly procedure and a large number of different factors have to be taken into consideration. According to Kuşan, Aytekin and Özdemir (2010) these factors include not only the value of the house itself but also external factors such as the location, the neighboring properties’ prices, emotional value, shortage of houses, or the depreciation of houses, to name only a few. Although the substantial estimated sum of costs has reached €150 million in total (Koster and Van Ommeren, 2015) and, in addition to this, the intensity as well as the total number of earthquakes are expected to rise in the upcoming years, there is still an absence of a protocol that handles complex damages at properties of the inhabitants, a protocol which covers more than one stakeholder perspective.

In general, this research creates a framework for identifying conflicts of interest and shows how stakeholders can work towards a fair and transparent agreement through the use of combining different perspectives. Fairness and transparency have proven to be a practically important aspect, as previous studies have outlined the potential to bind different stakeholders’ interests. Using both concepts to work towards an agreement between different stakeholders is not yet done before.

The remainder of this paper is structured as follows. A theoretical background is presented next, in which the different scientific theoretical aspects are discussed, followed by the methodology underlying this research. After this, the research findings are presented. Finally, the discussion compares and links the findings to relevant existing theories on the topic. The paper eventually concludes on relevant findings and insights.

2. Theoretical background

2.1 Protocols

A protocol can be seen as an agreement between different stakeholders about the work procedures, to strive towards common goals (Seok and Nof, 2014). This definition indicates a few functions of a protocol: (1) the base of a protocol is an agreement, (2) there are different stakeholders involved, (3) different work procedures and goals are present, and (4) the purpose of a protocol is to strive towards a common goal. Before it is possible to work towards such a common goal, the individual goals of organizations must be identified. For creating a protocol, it is essential to find out where the different parties link, but more importantly, where they do not link (Seok and Nof, 2014). In line with this, Dieste, Juristo, Moreno, Pazos and Sierra (2001) explained that an understanding of, for example, the problem components, relations, rules and constraints are necessary to determine an appropriate design of a protocol. Therefore, the different functions of a protocol must be investigated and executed during the modeling of a protocol. Conceptual modeling is therefore considered as crucial during the development of such a protocol (Kamps, 2015). For model creating purposes, models were constructed for two different goals; descriptive/ Conceptual Models (CM) and prescriptive/ Computational Models (CpM) (Wieringa, 1995). The descriptive/ Conceptual Models have the purpose of gaining an understanding of the reality. They are often utilized during the problem-orientation phase where important concepts of the problem domain are defined (Blum, 1996). Examples of traditional descriptive models are: flow diagrams, object models, rules etc. (Wieringa, 1995), which can be translated into protocols. Prescriptive models define the software system itself, it is the output or requirements, design activities and specifications. The usefulness of prescriptive models is therefore rather not directly related to protocols. Before being able to actually create a protocol, it is important to examine the different protocols of the embedded organizations, for similarities and identifying where the biggest differences are in the separated processes. This can be done with the traditional search and find method, or with some tools like the process model similarity query of Dijkman, Dumas, Dongen, Kaarik and Mendling (2011). After similarities and differences are presented, the processes can be merged into one protocol with the underlying agreement as input. Merging and aligning different processes can be seen as an agreement between the different stakeholders, there are three types of creating an agreement between different stakeholders (Nejati et al., 2007; Grigori et al., 2006; Dijkman et al., 2009):

This research focuses on the third perspective, the behavioral matching perspective. This is based on the fact that this perspective is most usable for creating an agreement between different stakeholders, or working together towards a practical solution (Dijkman et al. 2011). The structural matching is almost always covered, because therefore the different stakeholders have to model with the same language. The question that may arise here is why one should merge business processes? For that answer Rosa et al. (2013, p2) give a good description, namely:

“The purpose of merged models is to allow analysts to view the commonalities and differences between multiple variants of a business process, and to manage their coevolution and convergence. Instead of making changes to each individual variant separately, analysts can make changes to the merged model.”

By making use of programming notations, La Rosa et al. (2013) merge models with different mathematical algorithms. A different approach was used by Li, Reichert and Wombacher (2010), namely creating a generic model based on the different variants. The individual perspectives are being compared to the variants so that the sum of the amount of changes is the lowest. The approach of Li et al. (2010) is thus more practically oriented than the approach of La Rosa et al. (2013). Those two approaches are useable for the BPMN notation, yet there are a few other approaches one might use alternatively. Examples include approaches such as Reijers, Mans and Toorn (2009), Küster, Ryndina and Gall (2007) and Gottschalk, Aalst, MP and Jansen-vullers. (2008). However, these approaches are not useable for the modelling notation BPMN, due to the use of other notation objects. That is to say that the model first needs to be changed toward BPMN before it can be merged. Within the scope of this research, merging processes refer to the creation of a common protocol from different variants from different perspectives.

2.2 Fairness

2.2.1 Trust

Fairness is directed at values and norms of the different stakeholders in a SC, trust is one of these general values (Swift, 2001). Trust, according to Morgan and Hunt (1994), can be defined as the perception of reliability and integrity the different organizations have about other organizations. Earle and Siegrist (2008) support this definition and describe trust as the most important factor in a SC, especially were also public organizations are embedded. Trust between different stakeholders can be seen as an ongoing continuum about trust and distrust (Swift, 2001). Swift (2001) describes trust between stakeholders as the predictability of another organization's behavior. This predictability is linked with the standard distrust organization have about the competition (Blois, 1999). ‘’Another definition of trust concerns the confident expectation, based upon the other party's goodwill, that one's interests will be protected’’ (Ring and Van de Ven 1992, P.4). Hence, trust can be seen as the confidence organizations have in the other organization(s) in the SC, and is based upon reputation, dialogue and experiences (Swift, 2001). In order to create trust between the different tiers in a SC, it is necessary to establish a certain pattern of trustworthy behavior throughout this SC.

2.2.2 Equality

Fairness cannot be seen as a one-sided concept (Fehr & Schmidt, 2001). The researchers Fehr and Schmidt (2001) argue that fairness can be divided in two types of streams: Firstly, social preferences and secondly the intention-based stream. Social preferences are about self-interest, i.e. ‘what is in it for me’, whereas the intention-based stream is a concept where individuals also take the wish of the other stakeholder into account. Executing these two streams by different stakeholders embedded in the same SC will lead to equality between them, one of the important factors that influence fairness (Messick, 1995). Messick (1995) argued that equality between different stakeholders leads to a higher level of fairness. However, another researcher (Rawls, 2001) argues that justice is the factor which creates equality, and which is the only fairness that can exist.

Talbot (2007) described in her article that transparency is another key factor when different organization are seeking for mutual benefits implied by trust and honesty. The next section will describe the factor transparency.

2.3 Transparency

from other tiers was mostly kept a secret and reluctantly or not shared at all, as organizations were not used to collaboration. However, the sources of competitive advantage have changed, with the increase of e-commerce, and communication has become increasingly important in order to remain competitive, unlike traditional sources of competitive advantage (Barratt, 2004). Berman, Wicks, Kotha and Jones (1999) concluded that firms can significantly improve their financial performance by effectively communicating issues to their stakeholders (typically their employees and customers) as a means of differentiation, particularly issues regarding quality and safety. In summarizing the elements found in the transparency literature, Rawlins (2006) augmented a definition provided by Heise (1985) into the following operational definition: “Transparency is the deliberate attempt to make available all legally releasable information— whether positive or negative in nature—in a manner that is accurate, timely, balanced, and unequivocal, for the purpose of enhancing the reasoning ability of publics and holding organizations accountable for their actions, policies and practices” (p. 5). This implies that transparency can be influenced by the availability of information, the usability of information, and the way organizations feel committed towards the SC during their actions and practices. These concepts that are influencing transparency will be explained in the following sections.

2.3.1 Accountability and Commitment

In order to create transparency, commitment between stakeholders is crucial. The concept is commonly referred to in the literature as a range of degrees of participation in decision making processes. In its core, the concept relates to the connections made across levels of a political organization (Shi and Reid et al., 2006). The term can be defined as a process of sharing power and responsibility between a governmental institution and local, indigenous communities (O’Brien, Hayward and Berkes, 2009). However, commitment is more than this. In the literature about Supply Chain Management (SCM) the factor commitment is reviewed by Kwon and Suh (2005), and can be seen as an exchange partner believing that an ongoing relationship with another is as important as warrant maximum effort at maintaining it; that is, the committed party believes the relationship endures indefinitely, depicted from Morgan and Hunt (1994, p. 23). Commitment is especially a good ingredient for long-term relationships throughout a SC, (Mentzer, De Witt, Keebler, Min, Smith and Zacharia, 2011). (ADD.).

fundamentally about disclosure of public information to those with rights to know. To create accountability, the way information is shared between organizations must have sufficient, accurate, and understandable information so that it can lead to actions of different stakeholders as well (Swift, 2001).

2.3.2 Sharing information

However, accountability and commitment are not the only factors that influence transparency. In order for a SC to become transparent, the different stakeholders in a SC have to change their information content and source (Rawlings, 2008). Kwon and Suh (2005) argue that sharing information in an efficient and effective way will lead to the most successful SCs. In order to share information in an efficient and effective way, there are three concepts necessary to become aware of. Firstly, the information has to be made available for other stakeholders. Secondly, it has to be ensured that every stakeholder delivers complete information. And thirdly, it is important for the information to be usable for every stakeholder.

The availability of information that is shared between different organizations in a SC is often seen as transparency, but as described in the preceding sections, transparency is more than just that. The availability of information is described as the access the different organizations have to the information that is required to proceed the organization’s owns procedures (Phillips, 1997).

The completeness of information is often described as the effectiveness of information sharing (King and Bradford et al. 2014). This implies to determine if the organizations actually perform as they promised. This can be seen as an essential factor for creating transparency. In other words, do the organizations deliver the needed information, without missing documents or facts that are crucial for a good information flow throughout a SC (Gray, Owen and Maunders, 1991).

Another factor that influences the information sharing ability, is the usability of information. A high usability of information ensures that every tier in a SC can read and understand the information that is being shared. Therefore, usability creates transparency, because the information is free to access by different tiers, with different knowledge levels (Rawlings ,2008).

2.4 The link with a protocol

2.4.1. The link with fairness

One way to reduce the difficulty of creating a protocol is to investigate the fairness of a protocol. A protocol, that can be seen as an agreement between different stakeholders. Often there is an absence of such an agreement. In contrast, a partnership inside the SC where a high level of trust is desired will appreciate an open way of communication and information sharing. If stakeholders trust each other an agreement is much easier to accomplish. Beccerra and Gupta (1999) also indicated that the overall performance would be enhanced if the problems of distrust were reduced. This means that trust can be seen as an essential factor during the creation of a protocol. Swift (2001) argued that setting standards throughout a SC will create a manner of fairness and transparency for the tiers inside this SC. Markowitch, Gollmann and Kremer (2002) argued that a high level of fairness between different parties in a SC leads towards a good protocol for this SC. 2.4.2 The link with transparency

The factor fairness is mostly about trust, but transparency also requires trust. Being transparent requires a willingness to be vulnerable because you can’t ensure how people will use the information you share. Therefore, organizations must also trust their stakeholders in order to take the risk of being transparent. ‘’As the authors of “The Naked Corporation” put it, “If you’re going to be naked, you’d better be buff” (Tapscott & Ticoll, 2003)’’. Therefore, it can be quite vulnerable to be transparent, because if organizations aren’t superior or have done something that justifiably will raise criticism, the temptation is to keep it hidden, which is described by Swift (2001) as the accountability. Which makes transparency of the utmost importance during the configuration of an agreement between different perspectives and different organizations.

2.5 Summary

3. Methodology

Figure 3.1 Regulative cycle (van Strien 1997)

Figure 3.2 From a knowledge base problem towards a practical problem (Wieringa, 2009).

3.1 Research context

Since previous work of Kamps (2015) and van Bekkum (2015) is not yet accepted by all the different stakeholders, there is still disruption between them and therefore, creating a new protocol that would be perceived as fair and transparent by the stakeholders is essential for the practical context. In order to create a protocol where the concepts of fairness and transparency are embedded, this study used, as described above, the design science methodology during an empirical study. When using design science as a method to solve a problem, it is necessary to investigate and answer the following questions (Balsters, 2015): (1) Who are the stakeholders? (2) What are their goals? and (3) What are their critical success factors? These questions are

translated in the sub-questions of section 3.2.3 In the literature about design science, a stakeholder can be seen as a party that can be affected by solving the design problem. Each stakeholder has their own goal, which can be described as a desired change in the current state of the world. This goal has always underlying critical success factors (CSFs). A CSF can be described as an elementary condition that needs to be met, because otherwise the objective will not be fully reached (Balsters, 2015). CSFs can be divided into two types of factors, namely (1) Functional and (2) Non-functional success factors. Functional CSFs will describe what the system shall do and Non-functional CSFs will describe what the system shall be, according to Peffers, Gengler and Tuuanen (2003).

The data collection for this study was done at company A. Company A is suitable for this research because it is a public organization that, with their origin, always strives towards an honest solution for the society (La Porta, Lopez-de-Silanes, Shleifer and Vishny, 1999). Next to this, company A is in charge of creating a protocol for this complex problem in practice, as described in the introduction. The first focus of this research focus on the creation of a protocol. The second part of the study focuses on the validation of this protocol. Company A is in charge of creating a protocol for the entire SC in corporation with the company B. Since the results of this study will focus on the validation of the created protocol by company A, there is need for exploration about the creation of this protocol. The optimal model is created in BPMN during the start of this research. This can be seen as the practical start of this research.

3.2 Regulative cycle

The steps of the regulative cycle of Van Strien (1997), illustrated above in figure 3.1, are presented in the following paragraphs. The different steps are used as a guide for the methodology section, as well as the findings section.

3.2.1 Problem identification

First, there is need for an update of the stakeholders in the process, to be sure a protocol will be created with the tiers that are really influenced by it. In previous work from Kamps (2015) and van Bekkum (2015) stakeholder analyses were made. The stakeholders were identified after an interview with Miss A (interim team leader at company A for the complex damage department) and Mr. B (team leader of damage department at company A). The stakeholders were identified based on the current process and discussion around the earthquake politics.

company A is in charge of creating a protocol for all the complex damages that occur in the earthquake area, with the corporation and some alignment with other stakeholders. The inhabitants of this area form the most affected stakeholder, because they are having damage to their properties and they are the end-user of the protocol. The other stakeholders C, D, E and F, are embedded because they are forming the escapes in this protocol (see Table 4.1 for an extensive stakeholder analysis).

3.2.2 Diagnosis of the problem

To cover all the aspects of the concepts fairness and transparency in a new protocol it is necessary to answer the following sub-(research) questions:

1. What are the effects of the new protocol?

2. What are the goals and Critical Success Factors in the current context of the different stakeholders such as the inhabitants, company A, company B and company C, what are the similarities? What are the differences?

3. How will the design solution satisfy the stakeholders’ expectations about the given criteria of fairness?

4. How will the design solution satisfy the stakeholders expectations about the given criteria of transparency?

Company A is in charge of managing the future plans of the earthquake area in the north of Groningen which concern health issues, the livability, the employment and the safety of the inhabitants in the earthquake area. Company A has a special department which handles all kinds of different complex damage issues (team Complexe Schade). Together with the other departments, it is their responsibility to supervise in creating the livability of the area.

3.2.3 Data collection procedure

in a process description of a stakeholder, this is shown in table X and figure X. Table X shows the main elements of a BPMN protocol, figure x shows a visualized example by White (2004).

Objects Represented by Description

Event Circle Represent triggers and is something that ‘’happens’’. Events can be the start, intermediate, and end.

Activity Rounded-corner rectangle

Tasks and sub-process, represents work that is performed.

Gateway Diamond shape Control the divergence and convergence of sequence flow. So it will, among other things, determine decisions.

Sequence flow Solid line Shows the order between activities performed in a process.

Message flow Dashed line Shows the flow of messages between two separate process participants.

Table 3.1: Main elements of BPMN, by van Bekkum (2015)

Figure 3.3 Example of a simple BPMN model by White (2014)

(Wohed, Aalst, Dumas, Hofstede and Russell, 2006) and can be seen as the best language (at the moment) to describe a protocol.

For this research BPMN is not only used as a modeling language but also as an interview method. The first sketch in BPMN that is made during this research came up after desk research at Company A. This sketch (appendix A), created in microsoft visio, forms the base for the created protocol and the first interview with Mr. B (of company A). During the first interview, Mr. B went stepwise through the sketch to find improvements for the protocol. After the first interview, an improved protocol was modelled. This improved version formed the base for the second interview with Mr. B and Miss A (of company A). After the second interview, the protocol was improved again. This improved version was the base for the third interview, with Mr. C and Mr. D (both are employees at company A). The employees implemented various improvement points as well. These improvements are implemented in the protocol again. Before this research went to other stakeholders, there was a decision moment of the head of company A, Mr. H. After he accepted the protocol it was possible to get in contact with company B and company C. The next interview was with Mr. M, responsible for the damage protocol at company B. During the interview at company B the protocol was for the first time seen by another stakeholder. After the comments of company B, a new version of the protocol was created. This version formed the base for the next interview with the employees of company C, Mr. X and Mr. Y. Surprisingly enough they described a protocol created in BPMN, with all the different stakeholders into one page, as difficult to read and they had enough comments to implement in the protocol. Both stakeholders are not asked for permission but they are asked to give their opinion about fairness and transparency from this protocol. All the (guiding) protocols for the interview sessions (including notes) are embedded in appendix A, as well as the improved versions that arise after all the sessions. This way of gathering data can be seen as following the regulative cycle of van Strien (1997), where the output of the previous interview session is input for the next interview. Constantly following this cycle will lead at the end to an optimal protocol for a SC (at a certain moment).

The research continued with validating, which means the perception of the factors fairness and transparency about this protocol, throughout the entire SC to find out if all the stakeholders perceive this protocol as fair and transparent. This protocol (figure 4.1) is the base for the validation rounds. For the validation of this protocol, this research conducted 15 semi-structured interviews with external stakeholders (so all the interviews with company A are not counted here).

- Five interviews with inhabitants

The interviews are semi-structured because this research did not prepare actual questions, but the BPMN protocol was the guide during the interviews. The BPMN protocol follows a certain structure which guided the interviews, allowing room for individual comments from interviewees to evolve. With BPMN, the sequence of business processes becomes clear and with the use of control loops, one can check one’s own process during modelling. In addition, BPMN accurately displays the point where processes of different stakeholders appear parallel to each other. The data collection procedure ran smoothly at company A. Weekly meetings with company B were scheduled in order to talk about policies as well as work conditions. During these meetings, there was sometimes time for the researcher to get in contact with different representative stakeholders. In order to collect the data from the inhabitants, it took the researcher much more effort.

3.2.4 Validation

The last step of the regulative cycle, the evaluation phase, involves the validation of the created protocol. Since conflicts of interest are embedded with modelling in a complex and dynamic environment, the design needs to be validated to ensure that the process model makes sense (Weber, 2009). This entails that the new protocol needs the acceptance of all the stakeholders. Acceptance in this research implies a design solution with fair and transparent operational performance (Pedersen and Emblemsvag, et al, 2000). In the end, there needs to be a check whether all the CSFs are met, argue possible trade-offs, determine the scalability of the solution and judge the performance of the implemented solution (Balsters, 2015). It is important to check whether stakeholders have encountered new CSFs, because otherwise it is possible that the new protocol does not meet the criteria anymore. For this reason, step 5 of the regulative cycle is repeated a few times, generating a high level of validation. During this research, the protocol is constantly executed through repeated interviews with the BPMN protocol as a guide. First of all, the protocol followed the cycle a few times by company A internally, as described in paragraph 3.2.3.

For the validation of the protocol it was difficult to get in contact with one stakeholder, company C. As they are extensively involved in different political discussions concerning the topic (earthquakes), scheduling meetings or short interviews was not always possible. Additionally, many inhabitants were found to have a lot of anger issues towards the Company C, which is why it is difficult to investigate their actual perceptions of fairness and transparency, as most arguments are based on emotions and not on facts or honesty.

3.3 Data analysis

Data analysis started with making transcripts of the 15 conducted interviews. The resulted transcripts were analyzed by applying the process explained by Miles, Huberman, and Salda (2014). They described the three steps in creating a coding tree. First, open coding serves to group similar items according to some defined concepts and giving the quotes a descriptive name (Kamps 2015). This process decreased the amount of data and reduced them into more useable data for this research. The second step is axial coding. Axial coding serves to combine data that was separated at the start. The last step, selective coding ensures the integration and refinement of the categories by assigning them around the two concepts of either fairness or transparency. A summary of this coding tree can be found in figure 3.4. For this research this means:

1. Creating quotes out of all the interview data. 2. Assigning the different quotes into groups.

3. Assigning the groups to one of the two concepts, fairness or transparency.

Due to privacy rules of this supply chain, this figure could not be shown. Figure 3.4: Coding tree.

3.4 Analysis of Validation

Identifying the different aspects of the concepts fairness and transparency among different stakeholders’ perspectives, by the use of BPMN is a rather new concept in literature. In this research, the created protocol is validated throughout the SC. From this point of view, BPMN is a highly suitable and useful tool to model and identify processes. It denotes flows, tasks, decision points and, most importantly, who is making a decision at a particular point in the process. During the validation of the protocol a few key sub-concepts are taken care of:

- Are the different stakeholders in the created protocol trustworthy by the others? - Is there a feeling of equality throughout the SC?

- Is the protocol publicly available? - Is the protocol user friendly?

4. Findings

In this section, the findings from the study are presented by the evaluation step of the Regulative cycle of Van Strien (1997). This entails the validation of the created protocol in BPMN. The designed model, the starting point of the validation rounds, will be presented here (see figure 4.1). This model incorporates the different stakeholders of the SC, (for a more extensive stakeholder analysis, see section 4,2) and is created with repeated interviews. This can be seen as the design problem. How exactly this protocol is generated was outlined in more detail in section 3.2.3, and the execution of this described data collection can be found in appendix A.

4.1 Stakeholders analyses

For selection of the essential stakeholders, the list of Kamps (2015) has been revised during this research. In this latest research the following seven stakeholders have been determined: the inhabitants, A, B, C, D, E, F and G.

Stakeholder Role Goals CSF’s

(functional) What shall the system do?

CSF’s (non-functional) What shall the system be? Inhabitant Owner of a property with damage in the earthquake area. The inhabitants want to have compensation for the mental and physical damage.

The protocol will help them through the process of damage compensation without conflicts anymore. The protocol needs to be fair, reliable, secure and fast. Company C shouldn’t be incorporated. Company B In charge of executing the regular damage process, as repairing executors of damages . To relieve victims, with help to contribute to the safety of the residents in the earthquake area. The new protocol will decrease the amount of conflicts during the process and must describe our independability of the Company C. The protocol need to be standardized, fair and useful in work conditions. Company C In charge of gas-winning in the earthquake area and owner of the regular damage process. Handling the complex damages cases as efficient as possible. Compensate the victims in the earthquake area in the right manner. Cost-efficient protocol, that is fast, reliable, standardized and easy. Company A In charge of the overall earthquake issues. Company A has the regime over this To give the inhabitants of the earthquake area a fair treatment. Bring the area in a better economic position. The protocol is a guideline about how to handle the complex damages that Company A receive from

process as well.

Increase the livability.

Company C or out of the area.

amount of conflicts. Company D Committee that advises company C how to handle cases that need special attention (for example by social, medical or financial issues . Help inhabitants with different (distressing) problems that are occurring after the earthquakes and conversations with other stakeholders.

The protocol will decrease the amount of conflicts about social issues.

The system has to be fair, easy to read and reliable. Next to this it has to be publicly available, which makes it easier to communicate with the inhabitants. Company E Independent organization that can be reached when stakeholders have a complaint or a need for extra advice.

Helping stakeholders that are in conflict with each other. The goal is to get them back in the process again. In the protocol there has to be an escape to Company E as an extra route. This route is almost similar to Company F but here it is advice instead of justice.

Fair and clear protocol to compensate people for the damage they received during the earthquakes. Especially the inhabitants have to perceive it as fair. Company F Property owners can go to company F if they have problems with Company A, B or C. Company F is a kind of judge. Creating justice for the stakeholders during the process.

The protocol will be a handbook for Company F to find out where the conflict are in the process.

Clear and visible protocol that is complete and publicly available for all the stakeholders. Company G Independent organization that concerns subsidence and landslip. Company G is looking for evidence to prove the damage is caused by the earthquakes. In the protocol there has to be an escape to Company G as an extra route. Company G route needs to be integrated in the overall process, so it is widely covered by all the stakeholders. Table 4.1: Stakeholders with their goals and CSF’s

attempted to work towards a compensation protocol between the different stakeholders, generating sufficient compensation for the inhabitants. While these researchers tried to find the best compensation, this research aims to develop a protocol where the most stakeholders perceive the way of working as fair and transparent. The right compensation follows automatically if the process towards it, according to Dabholkar and Overby (2005), is perceived as fair and transparent by the different stakeholders.

4.2 Validation

This section will focus on the validation of the BPMN model, per stakeholder as illustrated above (figure 4.1). This research started with the first stakeholder, company B. The three stakeholders, D, E and F are not asked for the validation of this research because of their role in the protocol. Namely, D, E and F are three organizations that can be seen as gateways for extra advice or justice in the protocol. So if an inhabitant has a conflict with one of the other stakeholders, they can start the procedure at company F (justice). Company D and E (extra advice) are organizations that can be asked to advice company A on handling the complex damage, due to too many social problems (company G advices) or a number of uncertainties about the art of the ground and the stability of the ground line (Company E in charge), all depicted from the stakeholder’s analysis in section 4.1. All the interviews with the stakeholders were based on figure 4.1. For the inhabitants, however, this research constructed a protocol which is easier to read for individuals not trained on the subject. In this protocol, the results of the validation rounds with the company’s A. B and C are (mostly) incorporated.

4.2.1 Validation with Company B (B)

‘’After all the critique we received from all the stakeholders the previous year, including the political debates, it is at this time most important that we actually can execute what we promised to the other stakeholders, we cannot afford mistakes anymore. Therefore, I would say: build more control loops into the protocol to reduce failures.’’ (quote 3)

The first radical change, concerning transparency that can be deducted from the exemplary quote (quote 3) mentioned above, B wants to create more accountability with control loops. This will lead to a higher degree of transparency.

The experts of B introduced another few changes for the protocol. First of all, the completeness of information in the protocol is not sufficient: ‘’We are not just estimating the damage, we are making a first draft report (eerstelijnsrapport), if an inhabitant does not agree with this draft report there is the possibility to ask for a second opinion (contra expertise)’’ (quote 4). Adding this to the process of B the completeness of the way information is shared will increase, which will lead to a higher amount of transparency. Another radical change a B expert found concerns the safety, and the commitment from the stakeholders towards the inhabitants in this protocol: ‘’Where in the process can I find the actual inspection of a house? What if the damage is enormous, when is the case manager actually going to the inhabitant and sketching the situation?’’ (quote 5). This is a radical change as well, concerning transparency, which could and maybe must be changed in the near future. To do this, new validation round must be done, after the policy makers know where to incorporate it.

Overall it became apparent that B argued that such a protocol could be very useful, as the following exemplary quote outlines ‘’The protocol could be very helpful, we have kind of such a protocol for our internal processes, a shared protocol will reduce a lot of the disruption between the different stakeholders’’ (quote 20). Especially the communication with the inhabitants, but also with other stakeholders must be improved before this protocol can become publicly available. 4.2.2 Validation with company C (C)

4.2.3 Validation with company A (A)

Validation at A is done during interview sessions with the BPMN protocol as interview guide. A list of the most interesting quotes out of these interviews can be found in appendix C and these quotes are used for the findings. The validation at A is done with the case managers because they are the actual users of the protocol by A. Some case managers were also involved during the creation of the designed model. Therefore, other case managers are asked for the validation rounds. During the first interview with case manager V, the poor usability of the protocol was directly discussed.

‘’How exactly do I have to read this? For me this is way too difficult, I would like to see a better readable protocol’’ (quote 8).

This was an unexpected quote from an expert but it shows that the protocol is not yet transparent enough for all the possible end-users. Here a first radical change, concerned transparency, is opted by the case manager. Another radical change about transparency came up during the validation session with case manager W: ‘’For such a protocol an extranet between the different organizations is preferable and very usable’’ (quote 23). Such an extranet increase the transparency of the SC with big steps. ‘’Communication is more open and all the communication streams are reachable and readable for all the stakeholders which has access to the dossier’’ (quote 24). This radical change ask for implementing a new tool, which cost a lot of effort and money, therefore, this change cannot easily be implemented, but should be discussed during the weekly meetings between the stakeholders. He also came up with a change towards the way C is involved, he would suggest a more open communication stream between the stakeholders of this SC: “why not adding C at the beginning as well, the first contact is mostly held between C and the inhabitants’’ (quote 22). This change increases the transparency and equality between the different stakeholders.

Additionally, another employee of A, miss B, referred to the commitment from the different stakeholders towards the inhabitants:

‘’There are not enough contact moments in this protocol, if we really want to help the inhabitants we need to build in many more contact moments’’. (quote 10)

The first quote can be added to a new protocol; the second one is more difficult as this concerns policies between the different stakeholders.

4.2.4 Validation with the Inhabitants

Validation at company A is done during interview sessions with the BPMN protocol as interview guide. A list of the most interesting quotes out of these interviews can be found in appendix C and these quotes are used for the findings. For the inhabitants, this research worked with an updated protocol, a redesigned protocol of the previous one (figure 4.1), to ensure it is readable for a broader public, see appendix B. The validation of the other stakeholders are (mostly) incorporated in this protocol as well. In this protocol, the rules of BPMN are still used, yet it is shaped in a stepwise protocol, without swim-lanes and pools, but with tasks, gateways, decision points etc. This outlines much more in detail about where and when in the process inhabitants can expect a contact moment with one of the stakeholders. Not only the timeslots of actual contact from inhabitants with another stakeholder are important, also the terms of different steps are meaningful to know. A protocol for this SC with at least the terms and contact moments is therefore a good tool to improve communication, as the following quote already shows:

‘’For me it is very frustrating that our case is already recognized by company C since 2014 and up to now we do not know where we are, are we almost at the last phase? How safe are we in our own house? Or is it possible that we are still in conflict with company C in 2024?’’ (quote 1). Likewise, as it can be seen above, this inhabitant was totally lost in the old situation with the protocol of company C. The need for a protocol has already been described in the introduction, but at the first interview with the inhabitants it is highlighted again that this study is of utmost importance. Therefore, validation with the inhabitants can be seen as a key element of this research and the practical result of this validation will be presented in the section below. The general tendency of the inhabitants is against company C, if they are involved somewhere, it is directly perceived as unfair:

‘’Company C is involved during the final decision making process (vaststellingsovereenkomst proces), in my opinion this is unfair’’ (quote 14).

trustworthy. Another radical point of interest is the fact that all the inhabitants can start the process with Company F (or a legal proceeding) at every step in the process. This is not highlighted in the process yet. The first radical step cannot be directly changed; therefore, the policies have to be changed. The second radical step could easily fit in this protocol, see section 4.5, redesigned protocol after the validations rounds.

Concerning transparency, there are three major findings that need to be changed, according to the inhabitants. First of all, the terms and conditions of every contact need to be addressed, now there are only terms at the ‘’behandelvoorstel’’ and ‘’bemiddelingsvoorstel’’. ‘’It could be nice if there is a timeline next to the protocol, with this I exactly know what I can expect and from who’’ (quote 15). This finding could easily be changed in the redesigned one, but needs some extensive work from the case managers. If they give terms to inhabitants, they must be sure they can actually make it, otherwise the effectiveness could decrease, and this leads to a decrease in fairness as well. The second major change according to transparency is about the commitment of the stakeholders towards the inhabitants. This was already argued by company B as adding a ‘’warm visit’’. The inhabitants would appreciate more real-life contact moments next to the overall contact moments. ‘’With just e-mail contact I do not feel the commitment of the case manager’’ (quote 16). Another quote highlights the availability of the protocol and this could be seen as the third major change, as quote 17 shows: ‘’Company B used a login page where all the information of our case was presented, is this also going to happen with this protocol?’’. With such a login page the availability of the information could be increased drastically. It is not a difficult change but more an extensive execution change for the ICT department. Therefore, this step cannot be easily changed in the redesigned protocol. There is also a small point that could be changed. The usability and availability of the information is not optimal. ‘’It would be nice if this protocol is on your website, and that inhabitants can stepwise follow their case’’ (quote 18). Adding the protocol to the website of company A could be a good idea, also for the communication between the inhabitant and the other stakeholders.

4.3 Redesigned protocol

All the findings of the validation rounds are added to a new ‘’optimal (at the moment)’’ protocol that can be seen as the working protocol for this particular SC and as a final result of this research. This revised protocol can be found below in figure 4.3, 4.3.1, 4.3.2, 4.3.3, 4.3.4 and 4.3.5, below.

Due to privacy rules of this supply chain, this figure could not be shown. Figure 4.3 Redesigned model

Due to privacy rules of this supply chain, this figure could not be shown. Figure 4.3.1 Scheme 1

Due to privacy rules of this supply chain, this figure could not be shown. Figure 4.3.2 Scheme 2

Due to privacy rules of this supply chain, this figure could not be shown. Figure 4.3.3 Sheme 3

Due to privacy rules of this supply chain, this figure could not be shown. Figure 4.3.4 Scheme 4

Due to privacy rules of this supply chain, this figure could not be shown. Figure 4.3.5 Scheme 5

4.4 Data analysis

During the creation of the protocol for this particular SC the concepts of fairness and transparency are both addressed quite often. How these concepts reflects during the development of a protocol is presented now.

4.4.1 Fairness during development

During the development of the created protocol of this research fairness is often mentioned, see figures 4.5 to 4.5.5 for the final version of this research. The described concepts that influencing fairness, trust and equality, are mentioned during the creation of the actual protocol as well as the validation rounds. Where transparency is more about the functionality of the protocol, fairness can be considered as the must have to start developing a protocol. The next points are concerning fairness, these came up during the analysis of the interviews and the list of quotes:

- All the tiers in the SC needs to have the same amount of influence on the creation of the protocol.

- There must be a sort of feeling of equality.

- The different purposes of the different players must be identified and clarified throughout the SC.

4.4.2 Transparency during development

Next to fairness, transparency is also mentioned during the development of the protocol. In the final created protocol, see figures 4.5 to 4.5.5, as well as the way towards it, transparency is mentioned a lot. Especially, during the validation rounds, transparency is mentioned frequently. During the development it’s important to share all the information between the different tiers of the SC. Also the concept of commitment and accountability is mentioned during the interview session and the validation rounds. The concept transparency came up during the analysis of the data in the following way:

- Can the different organizations rely on each other?

- Are the organization's actual performing what they had promised?

- The information of the different stakeholders must be available for the other key stakeholders.

- The information must be readable and reachable for all the stakeholders in the SC. - The information must be useable as well.

The analysis of the findings has resulted in the following conclusions.

5. Conclusion

stakeholder perspectives were identified. A protocol offers stakeholders a standard working manner between the different stakeholders.

In order to be able to answer the research question about how to reach a fair and transparent protocol, this study used BPMN in combination with in-depth interviews to build a protocol. The protocol that is presented above came up after over 15 validation interviews that were conducted throughout the SC. The different processes are first drafted in BPMN with Microsoft Visio. The different processes throughout the SC are communicating with each other and are often opposites of each other. This is logical because all the stakeholders have different perspectives. For a fair and transparent protocol, the amount of conflicts of interest has to be as low as possible in the SC. The validation of the protocol, that is created within this research, can be seen as the main practical finding of this research.

The findings of this validation research result in an answer of the research question of this paper: how can a protocol to reach a fair and transparent agreement between stakeholders embedded in a context of conflict of interest be developed?

Validation indicated that the protocol in general was accepted by the stakeholders. Nevertheless, several remarks were identified. Most importantly, for this particular practical case, some stakeholder roles must be eliminated out of the protocol to reach a fair and transparent agreement between the inhabitants and the other stakeholders. Therefore, in general it is in some cases of big importance to analyse the relations between the different stakeholders in order to develop a protocol (more about this in the discussion). Next to the first finding, during the creation of a protocol the way information is shared, presented and used is mostly important for every stakeholder. The factors that are described in the theoretical background are (mostly) also important in practice. In the practical case, the stakeholders perceived a protocol especially as fair when:

- Stakeholders can rely on each other, this is translated as the effectiveness, do the stakeholders actually execute what they had promised.

- With negative experiences in previous steps it is impossible to develop a protocol, there must be a trust feeling at the start of the creation.

- All the possibilities a stakeholder has must be mentioned in the protocol, not only the best practice for a certain stakeholder.

- The protocol is publicly available and written in the language of the end-user, so it is readable and usable for all kind of levels.

- There are no hidden documents and process steps anymore inside the SC, stakeholders must rely on each other (accountability).

- Stakeholders want commitment from the other organizations inside the SC towards the protocol and the work conditions of this SC.

After all, the objective of the practical goal of this research is definitely met, a protocol is created. The protocol is not yet optimal; therefore, some policies need to be changed. This SC can use the created protocol as a starting point for a good collaboration between the stakeholders. This research also fulfilled the theoretical aim by showing how fairness and transparency can guide different stakeholder perspectives into one protocol. The match or mismatch with the literature is described in the following chapter.

6. Discussion

The discussion section will outline in which way the theory that was reviewed match with the findings of this paper. Afterall, the conclusion is made that it’s hard to compare the findings to the current literature while this kind of research isn’t often studied in this setting. The findings of this research are exploratory but are largely consistent with the reviewed literature. There are a few new findings however, which will be explained in the following sections. Firstly, the findings concerning the factor fairness are discussed followed by the findings concerning the factor transparency. This section will be concluded with the limitations and possibilities for further research.

6.1 Fairness

Fairness would be much more important if the different organizations were operating more at the same level (Osterlind, Dunkels, Eriksson, Finne and Voigt, 2006) and not like in this case, tiers on a totally different level from the society. Also, the history between the different stakeholders of this particular case is not beneficial to create equality. Equality between such tiers is hard to create, when at the start of the creation, a particular relationship is already negatively affected. This could be one of the reasons why fairness isn’t mentioned as important during the validation rounds (Olander, 2007).

Contrary to the literature about trust (the other concept within fairness) this research found that trust was already not applicable anymore, because of the time that was past and the bad experiences that already existed. This is another reason why most quotes are about transparency instead of fairness. Bad previous experience will never lead towards a trustful relationship anymore between different organizations (Church, Saunders, Wanke, Pong Spooner and Dorgan, 2002). Overall fairness was expected as a leading factor during the creation of a protocol, but this was not the fact in actually creating a protocol. Instead of the factor fairness, transparency could be much more seen as a key factor for the creation of a protocol.

6.2 Transparency

experts, it will not be a good tool to use while doing research. Wohed, Aalst, Dumas, Hofstede and Russell (2006) described BPMN as the best tool for the validation of a protocol, while Weidlich, Decker, Grosskopf and Weske don’t see it in this way, they described BPMN more as a supporting tool instead of a tool where research can be done with. So, work can be done to find out which method is preferable. Overall, transparency is considered as a critical factor during the creation of a protocol.

6.3 Limitations

Even though the research was conducted in a manner that would ensure high validity and reliability, this research also has some limitations. Most conclusions from this research are organization-specific and not completely generalizable. It is yet to be determined if the creation of the design solution for this particular SC holds value beyond the borders of this SC and can be transferred to different settings.

Further research could be done to find out if this research is applicable for every industry. The use of BPMN as base for interviews is a new way of doing research and could be very useful for further research and other types of research. A restricted factor in this research is the willingness and transparency of some stakeholders. A study at another plant would add a huge amount of value to the SC and thus the protocol for this particular case. If the earthquake area becomes broader, and the city Groningen will also be incorporated in the area, the issues become bigger and more complex. By adding the city to the area, new stakeholders have to be integrated in the protocol. The future of the area will be dependent on the integrity and power of the stakeholders This research is conducted in the Netherlands, yet it could be repeated in other parts of the world with comparative issues. An entirely different setting in which different stakeholders also want to create a fair and transparent protocol that embeds their different perspectives might also be an interesting context for future studies.

This research could be repeated in a SC where the different tiers are totally new to each other and operate at the same level. This would mean the creation of an agreement between new partners without previous bad experiences influencing the process. The same factors that are used in this research could be used and find out if fairness is more important than discovered in this research.

transparency throughout the SC. The factor safety and security was not mentioned by the stakeholders during the creation of a protocol. Prior to conducting the research, safety was expected as a factor for an area where a lot of damage occurred caused by earthquakes. For company A this is the most important factor to create.

7. References

Abdullah, Z. & Musa, R. 2014, "The effect of trust and information sharing on relationship commitment in supply chain management", Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, vol. 130, pp. 266-272.

Amza, C., Cox, A.L., Dwarkadas, S., Jin, L., Rajamani, K. & Zwaenepoel, W. 1999, "Adaptive protocols for software distributed shared memory", Proceedings of the IEEE, vol. 87, no. 3, pp. 467-475.

Ansell, C. & Gash, A. 2008, "Collaborative governance in theory and practice", Journal of public administration research and theory, vol. 18, no. 4, pp. 543-571.

Bakker, M., (2015). The winning of Natural Gas and Its Effect on Real Estate Value: Exploring the Design of a new monitoring system. Master thesis Technology and Operations Management, University of Groningen.

Balsters, H., (2015). Design Methods: Building utility-driven Artifacts Part 1. Groningen: University of Groningen.

Balsters, H., (2015). Processes: Introduction to BPMN. Groningen: University of Groningen.

Barratt, M. 2004, "Understanding the meaning of collaboration in the supply chain", Supply Chain Management: an international journal, vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 30-42.

Bekkum, van (2015). The effect of gaswinning on real estate prices in Groningen, Groningen: university of Groningen.

Beccerra, M. & Gupta, A.K. 1999, "Trust within the organization: Integrating the trust literature with agency theory and transaction costs economics", Public Administration Quarterly, , pp. 177-203.

Berman, S.L., Wicks, A.C., Kotha, S. & Jones, T.M. 1999, "Does stakeholder orientation matter? The relationship between stakeholder management models and firm financial performance", Academy of Management journal, vol. 42, no. 5, pp. 488-506.

Birkmeier, D., Kloeckner, S. & Overhage, S. 2010, "An Empirical Comparison of the Usability of BPMN and UML Activity Diagrams for Business Users.", ECIS, pp. 2.

Blum, A. 1996, "Crop responses to drought and the interpretation of adaptation", Plant Growth Regulation, vol. 20, no. 2, pp. 135-148.

Carter, C.R. & Rogers, D.S. 2008, "A framework of sustainable supply chain management: moving toward new theory", International journal of physical distribution & logistics management, vol. 38, no. 5, pp. 360-387.

Church, J., Saunders, D., Wanke, M., Pong, R., Spooner, C. & Dorgan, M. 2002, "Citizen participation in health decision-making: past experience and future prospects", Journal of public health policy, vol. 23, no. 1, pp. 12-32.

Dabholkar, P.A. & Overby, J.W. 2005, "Linking process and outcome to service quality and customer satisfaction evaluations: An investigation of real estate agent service", International journal of service industry management, vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 10-27.

Davis, L.W. 2011, "The effect of power plants on local housing values and rents", Review of Economics and Statistics, vol. 93, no. 4, pp. 1391-1402.

Dieste, O., Juristo, N., Moreno, A., Pazos, J. & Sierra, A. 2001, "Conceptual modeling in software engineering and knowledge engineering: Concepts, Techniques and trends", Handbook of Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering Fundamentals.World Scientific Publishing Co, vol. 1, pp. 722-724.

Dijkman, R., Dumas, M., Van Dongen, B., Käärik, R. & Mendling, J. 2011, "Similarity of business process models: Metrics and evaluation", Information Systems, vol. 36, no. 2, pp. 498-516.

Dijkman, R., Dumas, M., Garcia-Banuelos, L. & Käärik, R. 2009, "Aligning business process models", Enterprise Distributed Object Computing Conference, 2009. EDOC'09. IEEE InternationalIEEE, , pp. 45.

Earle, T.C. & Siegrist, M. 2008, "On the relation between trust and fairness in environmental risk management", Risk Analysis, vol. 28, no. 5, pp. 1395-1414.

Fehr, E. & Schmidt, K.M. 2001, "Theories of fairness and reciprocity-evidence and economic applications".

Geambasu, C.V. 2012, "BPMN vs. UML Activity Diagram for business process modeling", Accounting and Management Information Systems, vol. 11, no. 4, pp. 637.

Gottschalk, F., van der Aalst, Wil MP & Jansen-Vullers, M.H. 2008, "Merging event-driven process chains" in On the Move to Meaningful Internet Systems: OTM 2008 Springer, , pp. 418-426.

Grigori, D., Corrales, J.C. & Bouzeghoub, M. 2006, "Behavioral matchmaking for service retrieval", Web Services, 2006. ICWS'06. International Conference onIEEE, , pp. 145.