A business role represents the responsibility for performing specific behavior, to which an actor can be assigned, or the part an actor plays in a particular action or event.
Business roles with certain responsibilities or skills are assigned to business processes or business functions. A business actor that is assigned to a business role is responsible for ensuring that the corresponding behavior is carried out, either by performing it or by delegating and managing its performance. In addition to the relation of a business role with behavior, a business role is also useful in a (structural) organizational sense; for instance, in the division of labor within an organization.
A business role may be assigned to one or more business processes or business functions, while a business actor may be assigned to one or more business roles. A business interface or an application interface may serve a business role, while a business interface may be part of a business role. The name of a business role should preferably be a noun.