Enactable Electronic Contracts In E-Commerce: Models, Technologies And Architectures

In an e-service environment contracts are important for attaining business process interoperability and enforcing their proper enactment. An e-contract is the computerized facilitation or automation of a contract in a cross- organizational business process. Currently, there are many different approaches to create electronic contracts and support their execution. However, when creating a system based on e- contracts it is not always clear what model/technology/architecture to choose and what possible ramifications are. To address the problem, in this paper four most popular e-contract models (and systems supporting them) are taken and examined across several dimensions (e.g., e- contract model, e-contract lifecycle, solution architecture, supporting technologies). It appears that all of taken models have similar main line of actions and goals, however each solution has some additional specific features that is why technical implementation is very different.