Abstract

This chapter gives an overview of the present work. It is organized as follows:

Section 1 provides amotivation for process theory.
Section 2 explains theresearch problems of process theory and sketches thescientific method which is used in process theoretical research.
Section 3 presents someelements of process theory in an informal manner and introduces the reader to the way of thinking in process theory.
Section 4 provides aclassification of existing process theories. A list of the various theories together with a compilation of the most representative references allows the interested reader to study the respective approaches more closely.
Section 5 contains areading guide through the subsequent chapters of this work.

We have a habit in writing articles published in scientific journals to make the work as finished as possible, to cover up all the tracks, to not worry about the blind alleys or describe how you had the wrong idea first, and so on. So there isn’t any place to publish, in a dignified manner, what you actually did in order to get to do the work.
R. Feynman, Nobel Lecture, 1966

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