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The purpose of this paper is to provide a framework for understanding value‐added and abuse prevention activities in business processes.

The paper considers business processes as a regulation mechanism that an organization uses to survive and flourish in its environment. It proposes a theoretical framework based on the concept of homeostasis, the maintenance of identity in a changing world. In this framework the paper classifies business processes into three levels (strategic, operational, regulative) and analyse the relationships between these three levels. Based on this framework, the paper extends the “Use and Misuse Cases” technique to support modelling of value‐added and abuse prevention activities.

The main finding is the importance of considering business processes as regulation mechanisms. Traditionally, business processes are analysed through the goals they are designed to achieve. This paper analyses what the organization aims at maintaining. This makes it possible to explicitly model the potential abuses (threats) to business processes and their associated corrective measures (regulative processes).

Use of this framework enables process designers to explicitly model abuse prevention activities, even though they are traditionally considered as not participating in customer value creation. This should lead to better‐fitting business processes.

The framework is useful because it provides a theoretical justification for the value creation and abuse prevention activities that can be found in business processes. The three levels that we use to analyse business processes (strategic, operational and regulative) constitute an innovation in business process modelling where only two levels (strategic and operational) have been considered thus far. Few, if any, business process theoretical frameworks provide this kind of rationale for abuse prevention activities.

In this paper we present a systemic approach to modeling coopetition between firms that provides a methodology for analyzing the strategic incentives for organizations to engage in coopetition relationships (the why) and the organization design required to address the complexities inherent in such multifaceted relationships (the how).

We pursue a model-based approach that incorporates important conceptualizations adapted from competence-based management (CBM) theory and value network approach. We illustrate the applicability of our approach by applying it to the case of coopetition between IBM and Apple in the development of PowerPC CPU.

We show how modeling can contribute to our understanding of the strategic incentives for the organizations to develop a coopetitive relationship (“the why” of coopetition) and the organization design required for accommodating and addressing the complexities and dynamics of such a multifaceted relationship (“the how” of coopetition).

First, our findings echo some of the perspectives developed in coopetition literature. Second, the study has utilized value network-level analysis in examining coopetition.

The modeling framework reported in this paper can help management practitioners in structuring choice situations involving coopetition, both in terms of the incentives to engage in a coopetitive setting and the design of a value network that can accommodate the complexities inherent in such multifaceted relations.