The Declarative Approach to Business Process Execution: An Empirical Test

Declarative approaches have been proposed to counter the limited flexibility of the traditional imperative modeling paradigm, but little empirical insights are available into their actual strengths and usage. In particular, it is unclear whether end-users are really capable of adjusting a particular plan to execute a business process when using a declarative approach. Our paper addresses this knowledge gap by describing the design, execution, and results of a controlled experiment in which varying levels of constraints are imposed on the way a group of subjects can execute a process. The results suggest that our subjects can effectively deal with increased levels of constraints when relying on a declarative approach. This outcome supports the viability of this approach, justifying its further development and application.