Process orientation and the impact on operational performance and customer-focused performance

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of process orientation at the employee level on operational performance (OP) and customer-focused performance (CP), where the components process thinking by staff, process mapping (PM) and process standardization (PS) are cumulative developments, building on each other.

Design/methodology/approach

Structural equations modeling is used to analyze survey data collected from 198 participants at a business school in the period 2012/2013.

Findings

The results show that the impact of process thinking by staff on both OP and CP is mediated by PM and PS and improvement. The study also shows that process thinking by staff is a prerequisite for PM and standardization.

Originality/value

This research makes several important theoretical and managerial contributions toward the objective of a better understanding of the working of process orientation. It shows that different components of process orientation reinforce each other; process orientation maturity depends on the effort being applied in creating a particular sequence of process management components and that these components should be considered as cumulative developments, building on each other.

Citation

van Assen, M. (2018), "Process orientation and the impact on operational performance and customer-focused performance", Business Process Management Journal, Vol. 24 No. 2, pp. 446-458. https://doi.org/10.1108/BPMJ-10-2016-0217