Need object types to describe groups of objects with similar characteristics

[#1]

There are many objects (I'll call them object types) that really describe a group of similar objects.  For example, an Application Type might be an email application and that may describe many applications including MS Outlook, Yahoo Mail, Lotus notes or some other emailing tool.  A position type (or role) might describe an approver role that may be filled by many positions that might appear at a certain level (Director and above) in an Organization Chart.   A swimlane might be carried out by many business units that have a similar characteristic (e.g.. Front Office starts a process that is always sent to Finance).  You may want to mention which Business Units are characterized as "Front office".
The enhancement request is to allow more objects of type ".... Type" which can be represented wherever the original object would appear and then be able to relate the Object type with those objects that it is representing.  For example, have a new object that is "organization type" - an instance of this could be Front Office and it can be associated with "Bank Branch" and "Broker Sales" all of which are examples of Front Office locations.  Bank Branch and Broker Sales would be in an organization chart (or hierarchy) and the object type (here the organization type) would not appear in the hierarchy but could exist as the owner of a swimlane. 
These object types could apply to many objects - ones that come to mind are applications, positions, organization units, regions, products.  It would apply to almost an object where the objects can be grouped into objects that have a similar characteristic (and this is not a parent child relationship).
This enhancement is almost essential for any type of process modeling.

[#2]

Hi Lara,

On this one, would it work to just a) create another object of the same type as the group of objects being related, and name it appropriately; then b) create a hierarchical model that makes each member of the group of objects a child of the parent object?

The newly created object could be used as for a swimlane or an association as appropriate.