How do relationships contribute to object-oriented systems?

In object-oriented systems, relationships play a crucial role in how objects interact and collaborate to perform functions essential for business processes. When objects are designed with relationships, they can communicate and work together more effectively. This collaboration enables objects to inherit behaviors and attributes from one another, share information, and utilize each other's functionalities to complete tasks.

By enabling objects to perform required business functions, relationships foster a modular and flexible design that can adapt to changing business needs. For example, if one class represents a customer and another represents an order, establishing a relationship between these objects allows you to link a specific order to a customer. This dynamic interaction is fundamental to achieving the objectives of the system being developed.

In contrast, the other options do not accurately capture the role of relationships in object-oriented systems. Static behavior is more about how objects are designed rather than their interactions. While encapsulation is a vital principle in object-oriented design that helps protect an object's state, it is not eliminated by relationships; instead, it often works in tandem with them. Relationships do not directly dictate the attributes of objects but rather define how they relate to each other in terms of behavior and function. Thus, recognizing relationships as enablers of business functions highlights their importance within object-oriented design.