Culture in Business Process Management

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Type and Duration

PhD-Thesis, September 2009 until September 2012 (finished)

Coordinator

Hilti Chair of Business Process Management

Main Research

Business Process Management

Field of Research

Process Management

Description

Cultural aspects essentially influence the success of business processes. Even though many academics acknowledge the importance of considering cultural aspects in BPM there is hardly a discussion on how to systematically account for the soft factor culture in BPM. Representatives of companies also see culture as playing a significant role in process management. Still, this understanding does not translate to adequate attention in designing business processes. One explanation is that activities focus more on efficiency, i.e. hard factors like time, quality and costs, than on soft factors, like employee and customer satisfaction. Neglecting important cultural aspects, therefore, often means business processes lack sustainable success. Louis Gerstner sums up the relevance of cultural factors: "I came to see, in my time at IBM, that culture isn't just one aspect of the game - it is the game. In the end, an organization is nothing more than the collective capacity of its people to create value." For this reason, it is necessecary to focus on cultural aspects in BPM both, in science and practice.

Reference to Liechtenstein

Business Process Management is of high relevance to companies in Liechtenstein. Against this background, the project is organized in close cooperation with regional companies. The results will be made available to the Liechtenstein industry.

Keywords

Business Process Management, Culture

Publications

  • Schmiedel, T., vom Brocke, J., & Recker, J. (2013). Which cultural values matter to business process management? Results from a global Delphi study. Business Process Management Journal (BPMJ), 19(2), 292-317. (ABDC_2022: B; ABS_2021: 2; VHB_3: C)

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  • vom Brocke, J., & Sinnl, T. (2011). Culture in business process management. A literature review. Business Process Management Journal (BPMJ), 17(2), 357-377. (ABDC_2022: B; ABS_2021: 2; VHB_3: C)

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  • Schmiedel, T., & vom Brocke, J. (2014). Cultural values matter: The role of organizational culture in ECM. In J. vom Brocke & A. Simons (Eds.), Enterprise Content Management in Information Systems Research: Foundations and Cases (pp. 75-87). Berlin: Springer.

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  • vom Brocke, J., Petry, M., Sinnl, T., Kristensen, B. Ø., & Sonnenberg, C. (2010). Global Processes and Data. The Culture Journey at Hilti Corporation. In J. vom Brocke & M. Rosemann (Eds.), Handbook on Business Process Management: Strategic Alignment, Governance, People and Culture (International Handbooks on Information Systems) (Vol. 2, pp. 537-556). Berlin: Springer.

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  • vom Brocke, J., & Schmiedel, T. (2011). Towards a conceptualisation of BPM culture: Results from a literature review. Paper presented at the 15th Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems (PACIS), 07-11 July 2011, Brisbane, Australia.

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  • vom Brocke, J., & Sinnl, T. (2010). Applying the BPM-Culture-Model: The Hilti case. Paper presented at the 21st Australasian Conference on Information Systems (ACIS), 01-03 Dec 2010, Brisbane, Australia.

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