Representation theory versus workflow patterns - The case of BPMN

Selecting an appropriate process modeling language forms an important task within business process management projects. A wide range of process modeling languages has been developed over the last decades, leading to an obvious need for rigorous theory to assist in the evaluation and comparison of the capabilities of these languages. While academic progress in the area of process modeling language evaluation has been made on at least two premises, Representation Theory and Workflow Patterns, it remains unclear how these frameworks relate to each other. We use a generic framework for language evaluation to establish similarities and differences between these acknowledged reference frameworks and discuss how and to what extent they complement respectively substitute each other. Our line of investigation follows the case of the popular BPMN modeling language, whose evaluation from the perspectives of Representation Theory and Workflow Patterns is reconciled in this paper.