No. The entrepreneurial world cannot be fully mathematized, because it is a world defined by beings with the capacity to reflect upon, and so contradict, any mathematical description made of them.

Complete ontological models lead to a highly engineered, formulaic, and Newtonian Styled mode of systematically framing reality- one that becomes preferential to single-loop and double-loop cycles of theory and practice for an organization, but entrepreneurial activity requires the reflective practitioner. Reflective practice demands the acknowledgement that paradox and complexity are not just foundational to reality- they should be readily embraced instead of marginalized or avoided.

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Every mathematical system will have some statements that can never be proved.

K. Gödel

Stephen I. Ternyik Albert Einstain has said: "The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible... The fact that it is comprehensible is a miracle."

Nonetheless, many share your opinion, because discovering and formulating the ontological model of the enterprise seems hard and complicated and something that requires a lot of systemic work. We find ourselves to a state similar to the 15th century, when no one could comprehended that the ontological model of the human body can be defined (the anatomical and physiological model) and yet it was and thus redefined medical science.

But actually, it is possible to define the ontological model of the enterprise and someone has even done it successfully. I can say successfully, because the ontology was implemented in large industrial enterprises (+500 employees) where the whole management was subject to it as a major experiment among many other pragmatically-functional experiments.

It seems you might be interested in checking out a meta-analysis I did on the topic:

Thesis New business model ontology, examined as a bearer of cogniti...

Would love to continue the discussion if you have any questions.

Congrats for your achievement Trifon Stefanov A holistic digital model of every piece of information that matters to business operations, from processes to products to people, can create a powerful competitive advantage for an organization, i.e. by the the knowledge power of optimized ontologies. In this sense, AI—is about to create another complete transformation in how companies create and deliver value to customers.The digital transformation strategy itself can not be done without the reflective practitioner. There exist different (closed, open///single, double, triple) loops of learning in the entrepreneurial world. As a social scientist, my methodical perception of tech-know-logical processes is from the viewpoint of human labor and the technically involVed change of the production function (exponential factorial change).

Πάντα ῥεῖ καὶ οὐδὲν μένει All is flux, and nothing abides. Heraclitus

Stephen I. Ternyik Thank you.

And thank you for the great quote. Πάντα ῥεῖ καὶ οὐδὲν μένει All is flux, and nothing abides. Heraclitus

This is right on the point. Everything flows and nothing stays. The hybrid knowledge Business Model Ontology of ISEE (Institute for Systemic Economic Engineering) really puts focus on this matter through formulas that incorporate parameters for space and time, because all processes and all objects happen and reside in a certain fragments of space and time (it is complicated so I will not go into more details of the importance of the space-time continuum in the enterprise environment). But just as important, if not more, is the focus on the person in this ontological model as the center of every organization. I think it is common understanding by now that without people, no machine can function. The human labor in the organization should be defined, so we can adequately distribute the responsibilities of the whole enterprise down to each division all the way to each individual person. But for that we need clear understanding of what skill sets and knowledge packages are necessary at a specific work place so the person can be train, through company specific training materials (one of the many parts of the ontological model incorporating management tools for enterprise specifics), only after which the person, any person, can be expected to be able to take on the responsibility given to them. Thus the social benefit from such a system is also immense.

Maybe, you know that already Trifon Stefanov

http://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/perlis-alan/quotes.html

e.g. 21. Optimization hinders evolution.

Stephen I. Ternyik Optimization hinders evolution when the system is first not understood clearly by the users, because an industrial enterprise is a complex entity and second, and maybe most important, the theory that is used to understand the system is just rigid and disallows changes (the ERP software of today like SAP for example disallow changes as they are set up and then the enterprise is expected to exist in the same state). But if the system (theory that explains the system) is logical and flexible it is another story. You can check out the description of chosen experiments in the fourth chapter of the Thesis which I shared a few comments above. The theory and the ERP system based on the BMO allowed for the reorganization and restructuring of 80% of the workplaces with the aim of unprecedented optimization, while the production was ongoing and leading to predetermined and expected productivity increase (in contrast consultants tell enterprises that for such projects the enterprise should be ready to fail). The BMO and its software also allowed young and inexperienced employees to single handedly achieve enterprise evolution by developing and implementing in production a high-tech product that reached a prototype state for only 2 years, a product that required new processes for the enterprise, new skills, new machines, new facilities, education and training of the personal for all of this and a product that is with a much higher precision level than the so far production capabilities. This are things best understood by pragmatics and enterprise managers as this are some great challenges that are still unable to be solved efficiently in the industry.

Your brilliant answer is highly appreciated Trifon Stefanov

The "Epigrams in Programming", by Alan J. Perlis of Yale University (1982)

are thought provoking and humorous, e.g.

119. Programming is an unnatural act.

An ontological model aims to provide a formal and explicit representation of the concepts within a specific domain and the relationships between them. In the context of an enterprise, this would involve capturing the fundamental entities, their properties, and the connections that exist within the organization.

Ontology means worldview, I thought.

If you mean you want to make a model of an organisation that is deterministic, then you must consider it as a closed system. That is no communication with the outside world, no influence from humans.

You can make a systems model and incorporate a lot of subsystems. The model can be described in mathematical terms and you can make computed predictions.

But the map is not the territory. You have a model that is a limited and very much constrained version of reality. Just because your model allows you to use maths, does not mean that you can predict what actually happens. Just as econometric model making has tricked people into believing economy is an exact science, that is an illusion. Economy is the study of how people distribute scarce goods. If an economist finds a relationship that can be written in maths terms, it is still a social science that studies the behaviour of human beings.

In this vein, you can try to describe a sophisticated model in formulae of an organisation, but it remains an approximation of reality, it is not reality.

Lilian Hupkens The world is absolute, but our understanding of it is relative.

Even when we measure the length of something, we don't know the exact measurement, but we try to be as close as possible in order to be a useful measurement for us to do out job. A ruler with only centimeter incrementations would mean a reading error of around +/-0.1cm.

The exact measure of something is infinite numbers after the decimal point but out measurement precision is limited. It is the same for any other field. It is the same in management as well. We need to bring this world that is absolute into something relative that we can comprehended. The model of the internal combustion engine or the model of a space rocket is a complex model of connections and interconnections of all elements, incl the external environment's influence, while considering margin of errors away from reality, when it is manufactured.

All of this is a norm in the scientific approach. It is also the foundation when scientific management was established by non other than the engineers Henry Town and Frederick Taylor in the beginning of 20th century. They believed that scientific management should be practically useful.

This was also the belief of William Deming, another great engineer, who around the middle of the 20th century furthered the practical management as a science and developed production management with focus on quality, while taking into consideration all factors and elements through his "Deming's flow diagram". His developments brought about the Japanese economic miracle (which shows how making a model, formulating the interconnections and considering the environment, like any scientist or engineer does, can bring about great things). In addition the famous Toyota Production System is largely based and inspired on his developments.

After him, another engineers developed the MRP algorithm. This redefined management as their model connected supplies, production and sales and increased the efficiency, the planning capabilities, the management capabilities and allowed as everything was formulated allowed for all connections to be software integrated and this brought back the American industry and economy after Japan was booming due to the previous historical event. This also allowed the happening of globalization as we know it.

Currently all ERP systems are based on the MRP algorithm and without it, they wouldn't be as useful. This is real management. management of resources as efficient as possible internally, while considering the external environment, the prices, the trends, the customer network and the supply network of the given enterprise. In order for such a model to be useful it should go into huge detail, it should take in consideration all necessary elements and sub systems. It should take into consideration all specifics by integrating tools that can map out those specifics of both the internal and external environment of the enterprise. It is not easy, but it is not impossible as most critics think.

We introduce a totally new approach that is sough after by many and many more have develop in that direction over the years, which has all lead to the successful creation of the ontological model of the business. Only because of their foundational work, we successfully developed, over 20 years, the knowledge of Business Model Ontology and tested it in practice as a knowledge defining the enterprise strategic, tactical and operation dimensions and enhancing enterprise management to a new level.

I encourage you to take a look at some of our publications, or look up itfes.org.

Albert Einstain has said: "The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible... The fact that it is comprehensible is a miracle."

Thank you for your lecture. Perhaps you might rephrase the question with which you started this topic into something like “Hear ye, hear ye, I have succeeded in making an ontological model etc etc etc”.

Thank you all for offering your viewpoints, insights, and considerations on the topic of an ontological model of the business!