  Business process modelling languages typically enable the representation of
business process models by employing (graphical) symbols. These symbols can
vary depending upon the verbosity of the language, the modeling paradigm, the
focus of the language, and so on. To make explicit the different constructs and
rules employed by a specific language as well as bridge the gap across
different languages, meta-models have been proposed in literature. These
meta-models are a crucial source of knowledge on what state-of-the-art
literature considers relevant to describe business processes. Moreover, the
rapid growth of techniques and tools that aim at supporting all dimensions of
business processes and not only its control flow perspective, as for instance
data and organisational aspects, makes even more important to have a clear
idea, already at the conceptual level, of the key process constructs. The goal
of this work is to provide the first extensive systematic literature review
(SLR) of business process meta-models. This SLR aims at answering research
questions concerning: (i) the kind of meta-models proposed in literature; (ii)
the recurring constructs they contain; (iii) their purposes; and (iv) their
evaluations. Thirty-six papers were selected and evaluated against four
research questions. The results indicate the existence of a reasonable body of
work conducted in this specific area, but not a full maturity. In particular,
while traditional paradigms towards business process modelling, and aspects
related to the business process control flow seem to be well present, novel
paradigms and aspects related to the organisational, data and goal-oriented
aspects of business processes seem to be still under-investigated.
