Table 2.
Differences between i* and LiteStrat constructs
| i* construct | LiteStrat construct | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Actor types | ||
| Actor | Actor | In i*, Actors represent any type of intentional actor. In LiteStrat, Actors represent intentional actors that are outside the organisation and whose intention cannot be known |
| Agent | Organisation Unit | In i*, Agents represent an actor with concrete physical manifestation, such as an individual, organisation or department. In LiteStrat, Organisation Units represent the same elements except for individuals |
| Role | Role | Both are abstract characterisations of the behaviour of a social actor within some context |
| Actor association links | ||
| Participates-in | Participates-in | While i* does not restrict the types of actors that can be linked, LiteStrat defines that only organisation units and roles can participate in organisation units |
| Is-A | – | While i* does not restrict the types of actors that can be linked, LiteStrat defines that only organisation units and roles can participate in organisation units |
| Intentional elements | ||
| Goal | Goal | While both represent a desired state of affairs of any type of actor, in LiteStrat, it is reserved just for Organisation Units |
| Objective | Is a LiteStrat’s specification of measurable goals that is reserved for Roles | |
| Task | Strategy | While i* defines tasks as actions that an actor wants to be executed usually with the purpose of achieving some goal, LiteStrat separates these actions into high-level actions (Strategies) and specific actions (Tactics). Strategies represent an explicit high-level action towards the achievement of a goal |
| Tactic | Represents concrete actions towards the implementation of a strategy | |
| Quality | – | LiteStrat does not support the quality construct, since it is expected that objectives could serve to represent measurable desired levels of quality regarding the business strategy |
| Resource | – | Resource modelling is out of the scope of LiteStrat |
| Social dependencies | ||
| Goal dependency | Objective assignment | In i*, any type of actor can socially depend on any other type of actor to achieve its goals. In LiteStrat, only Organisation Units can depend on roles to achieve objectives through objective assignment |
| Quality dependency | – | Not supported in LiteStrat |
| Task dependency | Tactic Assignment | In i*, any type of actor can socially depend on any other type of actor to achieve its goals in performing an action. In LiteStrat, only Organisation Units can depend on other Organisation Units to implement tactics |
| Resource dependency | – | Not supported in LiteStrat |
| – | Influence | In LiteStrat, Actors or Organisation Units can behave in a way that affects other Organisation Units or Actors, but not necessarily with an intention to affect them. LiteStrat proposes the Influence construct to represent this relationship |
| Intentional element links | ||
| Refinement | Refinement | In i*, it is a hierarchical link between goals or tasks. In LiteStrat, it is also a hierarchical link, but the hierarchy is prescribed by the modelling procedure going from goals to strategies to tactics and then to objectives |
| Needed by | – | Not supported in LiteStrat |
| Contribution | – | Not supported in LiteStrat |
| Qualification | – | Not supported in LiteStrat |