Allen and March provide a critique of one of our papers in which we argue composites should be represented as entities/objects in a conceptual model rather than relationships/associations (Shanks et al. 2008). They contend we have addressed a non-issue. Furthermore, they argue our theoretical rationale and empirical evidence have flaws. In this paper, we provide a response to their arguments. We show that the issue we address is substantive. We show, also, that our theoretical analysis and empirical results are robust. We find, instead, that Allen and March's theoretical arguments and empirical evidence have flaws.
The part-of construct is a fundamental element of many conceptual modeling grammars that is used to associate one thing (a component) with another thing (a composite). Substantive theoretical issues surrounding the part-of construct remain to be resolved, however. For instance, contrary to widespread claims, some researchers now argue the relationship between components and composites is not always transitive. Moreover, how the part-of construct should be represented in a conceptual schema diagram remains a contentious issue. Some analysts argue composites should be represented as a relationship or association. Others argue they should be represented as an entity. In this paper we use an ontological theory to support our arguments that composites should be represented as entities and not relationships or associations. We also describe an experiment that we undertook to test whether representing composites as relationships or entities enables users to understand a domain better. Our results support our arguments that using entities to represent composites enables users to better understand a domain.