A conceptual model for compliant management systems
The dissertation specifies a Set of Concepts and a Conceptual Model for Compliant Management Systems (CMSs). The Set of Concepts is drawn from existing methodologies and the CMS Model, which is based on the Concepts, is evaluated against a compiled Set of Standard Requirements. The dissertation is analytical, conceptual and argumentative in nature.
The Model is designed to enable the future development of compliant, efficient and globally functional organisational Information Technology (IT) Systems. The Three Central Requirements of the Model – Compliance (essentially a Legal requirement), Efficiency (essentially a Business Management requirement) and Global Functionality (essentially an IT requirement) – necessitated a multi-disciplinary investigation in the Legal, Business Management and IT areas.
Compliance was the focus of the research as initial investigations showed no significant solutions existed that provided specific guidelines for the design of inherently compliant IT systems. As compliance relates to meeting regulatory requirements on a local or jurisdictional basis, whereas efficiency and global functionality favour global standards for IT systems (that enable system interoperability), the means for delivering “globally compliant” IT systems is problematic. The research therefore took the approach of “thinking globally and acting locally” by designing a Model appropriate for individual local organisations that can be used, in association with the development of appropriate regulation, as a template for globally compliant IT systems.
It was found that the issues of Privacy, Consent, and Accountability were at the core of compliance requirements and that Digital Service Contracts with systematic Authorisation mechanisms for contract parties (represented as IT System “Groups”) provided the means for assuring compliance. The Model proposes software based on Service, Group and Service Contract components – the Service Contract components fulfilling Legal requirements, the Service components fulfilling Business Management requirements and the Group components fulfilling IT requirements. The Model description in the dissertation focuses on the IT System design. Technical (software design) issues are not explored in detail, making the dissertation readable to persons with minimal IT background. The aim was to draw together existing knowledge in the Legal, Business Management and IT disciplines and to explore relationships between the fields at a high level rather than to delve in detail into any of the three disciplines. The research spans many fields within the three research disciplines, including Contract Law, Privacy Law, Company Law, Legal Consent, Franchising Systems, Business Process Management, Service Oriented Architectures, Cloud Computing, Access Control, Authorisation, Operating Systems, Data Management and Object Oriented Programming.