Ontological Representation of Virtual Business Communities

Abstract

Business knowledge that is embodied in texts such as business news and companies profiles has become widely accessible to the business community, as well as to the general public, mostly due to the growing popularity of the Internet. The field of efficient information retrieval and knowledge discovery from textual data is an increasingly important research topic driven by the Internet growth and easy access to very large business directories on the Internet. To become acquainted with a particular domain and to better understand the underlying concepts, domain knowledge can be represented by ontologies. In addition, ontologies can be used for identification of potential links in virtual business communities and for decision support when searching for right business partners, which is very relevant to small to medium-sized enterprises. Potential applications range from dynamic supply chain configuration to building consortia as quick responses to business opportunities.