I just checked out the EJB3 Spec and found the following: Section 13.6.5 Handling of Methods that Run with "an unspecified transaction context" anonymous wrote : | The term ?an unspecified transaction context? is used in the EJB specification to refer to the cases in | which the EJB architecture does not fully define the transaction semantics of an enterprise bean method | execution. | | This includes the following cases: | | ? The execution of a method of an enterprise bean with container-managed transaction demarcation | for which the value of the transaction attribute is NOT_SUPPORTED, NEVER, or SUPPORTS. | | ? The execution of a PostConstruct, PreDestroy, PostActivate, or PrePassivate | callback method of a session bean with container-managed transaction demarcation.[71] | | ? The execution of a PostConstruct or PreDestroy callback method of a message-driven | bean with container-managed transaction demarcation.[72] | | The EJB specification does not prescribe how the container should manage the execution of a method | with an unspecified transaction context?the transaction semantics are left to the container implementation. | My guess is that JBoss lets you use UserTransaction since there's no tx context defined. View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4047374#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...