---
title: Exploring business roles
description: A business role defines the responsibilities, rights, and duties that a business actor holds when performing specific business behavior.
locale: en-US
canonical_url: https://www.servicenow.com/docs/r/australia/application-portfolio-management/eaw-business-roles.html
release: australia
topic_type: concept
last_updated: "2026-08-01"
reading_time_minutes: 1
keywords: [business role, business actor, role hierarchy, Enterprise Architecture Workspace]
breadcrumb: [Exploring the business architecture, Exploring Portfolio list view, Exploring Enterprise Architecture Workspace, Enterprise Architecture Workspace, Enterprise Architecture]
---

# Exploring business roles

A business role defines the responsibilities, rights, and duties that a business actor holds when performing specific business behavior.

A business role represents a set of responsibilities, rather than the person or team that fulfills them. A business role encompasses the rights and duties associated with performing specific business behavior, independently of who currently holds the role.

Business roles can have a parent role, letting you build a role hierarchy that reflects your organization's reporting structure. For example, a Credit Officer role can have Onboarding Specialist as its parent role.

Using the Enterprise Architecture Workspace, you can perform the following:

-   Create and edit business roles
-   Build a role hierarchy using parent roles
-   Associate a department, group, and required skills with a business role
-   Associate business actors with a business role to identify who fulfills it

When you model a business role in a diagram, the default relationship between a business actor and a business role is **Assigned to :: Fulfilled by**.

**Parent Topic:**[Exploring the business architecture](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/application-portfolio-management/eaw-business-architecture.md)

**Related topics**  


[Manage business roles](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/application-portfolio-management/eaw-manage-business-roles.md)