Theresa Schmiedel

Which cultural values matter to business process management?: Results from a global Delphi study

Purpose – Business process management (BPM) requires a holistic perspective that includes managing the culture of an organization to achieve objectives of efficient and effective business processes. Still, the specifics of a BPM‐supportive organizational culture have not been examined so far. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to identify the characteristics of a cultural setting supportive of BPM objectives.Design/methodology/approach – The paper examines the constituent values of a BPM‐supportive cultural setting through a global Delphi study with BPM experts from academia and practice and explore these values in a cultural value framework.Findings – The paper empirically identifies and defines four key cultural values supporting BPM, viz., customer orientation, excellence, responsibility, and teamwork. The paper discusses the relationships between these values and identifies a particular challenge in managing these seemingly competing values.Research limitations/implications – The identification and de...

Ten principles of good business process management

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to foster a common understanding of business process management (BPM) by proposing a set of ten principles that characterize BPM as a research domain and guide its successful use in organizational practice. Design/methodology/approach – The identification and discussion of the principles reflects the viewpoint, which was informed by extant literature and focus groups, including 20 BPM experts from academia and practice. Findings – The authors identify ten principles which represent a set of capabilities essential for mastering contemporary and future challenges in BPM. Their antonyms signify potential roadblocks and bad practices in BPM. The authors also identify a set of open research questions that can guide future BPM research. Research limitations/implications – The findings suggest several areas of research regarding each of the identified principles of good BPM. Also, the principles themselves should be systematically and empirically examined in future studies....

Development and validation of an instrument to measure organizational cultures' support of Business Process Management

The purpose of Business Process Management (BPM) is to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of organizational processes through improvement and innovation. Despite a common understanding that culture is an important element in these efforts, there is a dearth of theoretical and empirical research on culture as a facilitator of successful BPM. We develop the BPM culture construct and propose a validated instrument with which to measure organizational cultures’ support of BPM. The operationalization of the BPM culture concept provides a theoretical foundation for future research and a tool to assist organizations in developing a cultural environment that supports successful BPM.

Towards a typology of business process management professionals: identifying patterns of competences through latent semantic analysis

While researchers have analysed the organisational competences that are required for successful Business Process Management (BPM) initiatives, individual BPM competences have not yet been studied in detail. In this study, latent semantic analysis is used to examine a collection of 1507 BPM-related job advertisements in order to develop a typology of BPM professionals. This empirical analysis reveals distinct ideal types and profiles of BPM professionals on several levels of abstraction. A closer look at these ideal types and profiles confirms that BPM is a boundary-spanning field that requires interdisciplinary sets of competence that range from technical competences to business and systems competences. Based on the study’s findings, it is posited that individual and organisational alignment with the identified ideal types and profiles is likely to result in high employability and organisational BPM success.

Culture in Business Process Management: How Cultural Values Determine BPM Success

There is consensus among practitioners and academics that culture is a critical factor that is able to determine success or failure of BPM initiatives. Yet, culture is a topic that seems difficult to grasp and manage. This may be the reason for the overall lack of guidance on how to address this topic in practice. We have conducted in-depth research for more than three years to examine why and how culture is relevant to BPM. In this chapter, we introduce a framework that explains the role of culture in BPM. We also present the relevant cultural values that compose a BPM culture, and we introduce a tool to examine the supportiveness of organizational cultures for BPM. Our research results provide the basis for further empirical analyses on the topic and support practitioners in the management of culture as an important factor in BPM initiatives.

Business Process Management: Potentials and Challenges of Driving Innovation

Business process management (BPM) is fundamental for organizational competitiveness. In the last decades, BPM has evolved from a technology-focused into a holistic and principle-oriented discipline concerned with efficient and effective business processes. However, the emerging digital age requires rethinking the role of BPM in organizations. On the one hand, we identify opportunities of BPM as a driver of innovation that institutionalizes digital technologies in business processes. On the other hand, we also recognize opportunities to, in turn, innovate BPM. Overall, we identify both opportunities and challenges of BPM when it comes to innovation in the digital age. Based on these insights, we provide an outlook on the chapters of this book which may guide both the research and practice of BPM in driving innovation in a digital world.

BPM - Driving Innovation in a Digital World

This book shows how business process management (BPM), as a management discipline at the intersection of IT and Business, can help organizations to master digital innovations and transformations. At the same time, it discusses how BPM needs to be further developed to successfully act as a driver for innovation in a digital world. In recent decades, BPM has proven extremely successful in managing both continuous and radical improvements in many sectors and business areas. While the digital age brings tremendous new opportunities, it also brings the specific challenge of correctly positioning and scoping BPM in organizations. This book shows how to leverage BPM to drive business innovation in the digital age. It brings together the views of the worlds leading experts on BPM and also presents a number of practical cases. It addresses mangers as well as academics who share an interest in digital innovation and business process management. The book covers topics such as BPM and big data, BPM and the Internet of Things, and BPM and social media. While these technological and methodological aspects are key to BPM, process experts are also aware that further nontechnical organizational capabilities are required for successful innovation. The ideas presented in this book have helped us a lot while implementing process innovations in our global Logistics Service Center. Joachim Gantner, Director IT Services, Swarovski AGManaging Processes everyone talks about it, very few really know how to make it work in todays agile and competitive world. It is good to see so many leading experts taking on the challenge in this book. Cornelius Clauser, Chief Process Officer, SAP SEThis book provides worthwhile readings on new developments in advanced process analytics and process modelling including practical applications food for thought how to succeed in the digital age. Ralf Diekmann, Head of Business Excellence, Hilti AGThis book is as an important step towards process innovation systems. I very much like to congratulate the editors and authors for presenting such an impressive scope of ideas for how to address the challenging, but very rewarding marriage of BPM and innovation. Professor Michael Rosemann, Queensland University of Technology

The Role of Gender in Business Process Management Competence Supply

While Business Process Management (BPM) was originally focused on Information Technology as a key factor driving the efficiency and effectiveness of organizational processes, there is now a growing consensus among practitioners and academics that BPM represents a holistic management approach that also takes such factors as corporate governance, human capital, and organizational culture into account. Studies show that the BPM practice faces a shortage of competence supply that stems from a shortage of qualified BPM professionals. At the same time, there is a distinct underrepresentation of women in technology-related fields; it has been suggested that gender stereotypes are one of the reasons for this underrepresentation. The goal of this research paper is, thus, to better understand the role of gender in the BPM competences supply. In this study 10,405 LinkedIn profiles of BPM professionals were analyzed using a text mining technique called Latent Semantic Analysis. Twelve distinct categories of supplied BPM competences were identified and it was investigated how far gender biases exist among BPM professionals. The nature of BPM-related competences is discussed, together with the differences in their presentation by male and female professionals, which indicate potential existence of gender stereotypes. Further, it is discussed how the apparent underrepresentation of women among BPM professionals can be addressed to close the competence gap in the field. The study contributes to both the call for research on human capital in the BPM field, and the calls for research on gender and gender stereotypes in technology-related fields.

Characterizing Multiple Institutional Logics for Innovation with Digital Technologies

Innovating with digital technologies is important for organizations in order to stay competitive in the market. Today, diverse actors drawing on multiple institutions drive such innovations, ranging from engineers, designers and customer facing units, far extending the scope of the IT function which used to lead digital efforts. Still, there is little research on how non-IT functions innovate with digital technologies. Using the lens of institutional logics and affordances, we examine case studies to address this research gap. We find that actors outside of the IT function innovate with digital technologies in various ways because - depending on the combination of institutional logics they draw from - they recognize affordances of digital technologies differently.

How Organizational Culture Facilitates a Global BPM Project: The Case of Hilti

The role of culture in business processes is often underestimated. Especially the success of Business Process Change depends to a large extent on the employees’ willingness to adapt to a new work environment and eventually accept short-term losses for long-term benefits. We, therefore, engage with the Hilti Corporation analyzing the role of culture in a specific change project. After introducing the Hilti business model, we take a closer look at the measures taken at Hilti to actively manage a global culture by means of the Culture Journey. Against this background, we examine the impact culture may have on Business Process Change. The IT-driven change project Global Processes and Data (GPD) at Hilti serves as an example for exploring the way in which culture affects process change. We conclude deriving some lessons learnt from the Hilti Case on the role of culture in BPM.