The management of business transactions through electronic contracts

Based on a Business Media Framework (BMF) as an instantiation of a new media reference model, the paper provides a solution for the integrated management of business transactions, considering contracts as the key information of all legally relevant actions in a business transaction. Derived from these concepts and assumptions, a contracting framework is presented that gives an overview of the services and roles that have to be fulfilled in a business transaction to manage the flow of information. Finally, a container architecture as an instantiation of a market transaction managing entity is presented, described and embedded into the BMF. The concept provided in the paper was developed within the Secure Electronic Contracts (SeCo) project at the =mcm Institute at the University of St. Gallen and the University of Zurich in Switzerland (M. Gisler et al., 1999). The focus of the project is to merge business requirements on electronic contracting with IT security requirements and legal aspects. The paper mainly covers a contracting framework that meets business requirements on electronic contracting in business media