e3value user guide
Actors may cooperate in various relations to offer something of value to customers. Examples are revenue sharing, cross-selling, franchising, and many more [7]. E3value only represents transactions among actors, no contractual relations. However, if two or more actors offer their products as a bundle to customers, we say that they have a partnering relationship. This is modeled by a composite actor, which is represented by a rectangle around the actors whose products are bundled (figure 2.8).
The partnership is not the owner of the participating actors. Partnerships are only used to represent bundling of products of independent actors. In figure 2.8, the Railway company and the Caterer form a partnership in which they offer their services in one bundle. The Traveler cannot observe that the service is offered by two independent actors, and hence for the Traveler the situation is indistinguishable from that of figure 2.5.