What is E-Contract

The Internet and the Service-oriented Computing (SOC) paradigm (Papazoglou, Traverso & Dustdar, 2008) made the electronic interchange of services possible. Consequently, the scope of Business Process Management (BPM) (Khalaf, Keller & Leymann, 2006) has broadened from intra-organizational service interchange to interorganizational cooperation. In this new scenario, organizations are concentrating efforts on their main business and subcontracting electronic services (e-services) from partners. Business processes that cross organizational borders are more complex, thus a simple definition of the process is no longer enough to ensure trust. An electronic contract (e-contract) is necessary to define the rights and obligations of each involved party and monitoring of business process execution becomes mandatory.