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Business process implementation has been primarily seen as a redesign of the workflow with the consequent organizational change assumed to be taking place automatically or through a process of “muddling through”. Although evidence suggests that 70 per cent of business process reengineering programmes have failed due to lack of alignment with corporate change strategy, the question of alignment of workflow redesign with the organizational change process has not received adequate attention. The purpose of this paper is to provide a framework for managing organizational change in a structured manner during workflow redesign, a perspective missing in the literature on business process management (BPM) implementation.

This paper attempts to integrate the 8-S dimensions of Higgins model across the different phases of workflow redesign to develop a process framework of managing organizational change during BPM workflow redesign. As an exploratory study the paper draws on existing literature on BPM and change alignment to conceptualize an alignment framework of associated managerial activities involved during different phases of BPM workflow redesign. The framework is evaluated against two case studies of business process implementation to substantiate how lack of alignment leads to failure in BPM implementation.

The paper provides a conceptual framework of how organizational change should be managed during BPM implementation. The model suggests the sequence of alignment of the 8-S dimensions (Higgins, 2005) with the different phases of the workflow redesign and identifies the role of the managerial levels in the organization in managing the alignment of the 8-S dimensions during business process change.

This framework would provide managers with an execution template of how to achieve alignment of the workflow redesign with the 8-S dimensions thus facilitating effective organizational change during business process implementation.

This paper proposes a process model of how organizational elements should be aligned with the workflow redesign during business process change implementation. No such model is available in BPM literature proposing alignment between hard and soft factors.

The aim of this paper is to suggest a method to redesign business processes from the viewpoint of knowledge flows using a knowledge map.

Knowledge flows and business processes cannot be separated because knowledge is inputted and outputted through business processes. Knowledge flows inherit the feature and appearance of corresponding business processes; therefore, one can identify problems within business processes by analyzing corresponding knowledge flows. The methodology is composed of the following sections: knowledge mapping, knowledge profiling, knowledge flow identification, knowledge flow optimization and TO‐BE process visualization.

This paper provides a methodology for knowledge flow‐based business process redesign and ten guidelines for knowledge flow optimization. The case study demonstrates that the proposed ideas constitute knowledge‐intensified business processes.

A more formal validation method that is based on the statistical analysis must be provided to assert the proposed guidelines for knowledge flow optimization as the truly optimized ones.

This paper's idea provides the practical methodology and guidelines that can be directly applicable to performing business process redesign by introducing a real case.

This paper's ideas not only provide present companies with a practical way to enhance their business process to be more knowledge‐focused, but also promote the current economy to be more knowledge‐intensive.

Process redesign refers to the intentional change of business processes. While process redesign methods provide structure to redesign projects, they provide limited support during the actual creation of to-be processes. More specifically, existing approaches hardly develop an ontological perspective on what can be changed from a process design point of view, and they provide limited procedural guidance on how to derive possible process design alternatives. This paper aims to provide structured guidance during the to-be process creation.

Using design space exploration as a theoretical lens, the authors develop a conceptual model of the design space for business processes, which facilitates the systematic exploration of design alternatives along different dimensions. The authors utilized an established method for taxonomy development for constructing the conceptual model. First, the authors derived design dimensions for business processes and underlying characteristics through a literature review. Second, the authors conducted semi-structured interviews with professional process experts. Third, the authors evaluated their artifact through three real-world applications.

The authors identified 19 business process design dimensions that are grouped into different layers and specified by underlying characteristics. Guiding questions and illustrative real-world examples help to deploy these design dimensions in practice. Taken together, the design dimensions form the “Business Process Design Space” (BPD-Space).

Practitioners can use the BPD-Space to explore, question and rethink business processes in various respects.

The BPD-Space complements existing approaches by explicating process design dimensions. It abstracts from specific process flows and representations of processes and supports an unconstrained exploration of various alternative process designs.

Business process redesign (BPR) is still a big issue in improving organizations and a lot of methods and techniques exist to support this undertaking. Referring to this, the purpose of this paper is to derive a framework for identifying patterns in BPR that help in discovering new mechanisms which are indispensable to redesign and improve business processes.

The first part of this research process follows the principles of design science research by deriving the framework as an artifact. The second part focuses on the justification (“Justify/Evaluate”) of the framework using a literature review and a laboratory experiment.

A framework for identifying BPR pattern is derived and in parts validated by literature that helps to support the act of improving business processes. The advantages of this approach lie in the integrity of deriving possible patterns and the fact that it is not limited (as attempts in related work suffered from). The practical implications and added value of the (selected) patterns could be validated by conducting a laboratory experiment.

The justification of the framework is based on a narrow literature review, just to show that this framework is applicable. For a more detailed evaluation a broader literature review is needed. The laboratory experiment was conducted for four patterns only. This also needs to be expanded in further research.

The paper is valuable for academics and practitioners because the impact of BPR on organizational performance is high. Using the identified BPR pattern facilitates the redesign of business processes, as shown in the experiment.

The originality of the paper lies in the possibility to easily identify BPR pattern to support the redesign of existing business processes.

The purpose of research is to examine the communication optimization theory by comparing two business process representation approaches and related redesign guidelines through an experiment.

The experiment examined two process representation approaches involving 114 subjects. Each method gravitated around a different business process representation – one placed emphasis on business process activities and their sequencing, and the other on the web of communication interactions found in business processes.

The key finding was that an emphasis on a communication‐oriented view of processes seems to increase perceived modeling quality and redesign success.

Data were collected from various information systems classes at a university. The participants were not redesign team members in an actual organizational redesign project. Future studies should focus on the characteristics of the designers.

The findings should allow managers and practitioners involved in operational‐level process redesign to acknowledge and focus on the flow of information rather than just the activities performed or at least determine a balance between these two approaches. Further, the information system developers and designers should be able to better align information systems design with business processes techniques. Using communication flow methodologies in the analysis stage should significantly help the design and the development processes.

This research was one of the first experimental studies to test the communication flow optimization theory and its effect on business process redesign.

The continuous redesign of processes is crucial for companies in times of tough competition and fast‐changing surrounding conditions. Since the manual redesign of processes is a time‐ and resource‐consuming task, automated redesign will increasingly become a useful alternative. Hence, future redesign projects need to be valuated based on both a manual and an automated redesign approach. The purpose of this paper is to compare the manual and automated process redesign on the basis of the Business Process Management (BPM) lifecycle.

In this paper, the authors compare the manual and automated process redesign on the basis of the Business Process Management (BPM) lifecycle. The results form the basis for a mathematical model that outlines the general economic characteristics of process redesign as well as for the manual and automated approaches. Subsequently, the authors exemplarily apply their model to a set of empirical data with respective assumptions on particular aspects of the automated approach.

In the problem setting described in the paper, the valuation model shows that automated process redesign induces an equal or higher number of optimized processes in a company. Therefore, the authors present a decision support that outlines how much to invest in automated process redesign.

The model considers the cost side of automated process redesign; therefore, further research should be conducted to analyze the possibility of higher returns induced by automated redesign (e.g., through a quicker adaption to real‐world changes). Moreover, for automated redesign, there is no requirement for broad empirical data that should be collected and analyzed as soon as this approach leaves the basic research and prototyping stages.

This paper presents an approach that can be used by companies to estimate the upper limit for investments in manual and automated process redesign. Working under certain general assumptions and independently from actual cost and return values, the paper demonstrates that automated process redesign induces an equal or higher ratio of optimized processes. Thus, companies introducing automated redesign cannot only apply the model to evaluate their investments but can also expect a higher ratio of optimized processes for this approach.

As existing literature primarily focuses on the technical aspects of automated process redesign, these findings contribute to the current body of literature. This paper discusses a first decision‐support for the economic aspects of automated process redesign, particularly with regard to the investments that are required for it. This information is relevant as soon as the approach leaves the stage of a prototype.

Several world‐class companies have re‐designed or re‐engineered – their business processes with considerable success. However, failure rates of some 70 per cent have been reported in BPR projects. This may be due to focusing on operational and implementation issues, bypassing strategic aspects. Recognizes three perspectives to business process redesign prevailing in recent literature. The first sees information technology as enabler, improving the operative efficiency of processes. The second observes the potential of business processes in the redesign of organization. The third, and least emphasized perspective, calls for business processes as units of strategic planning and therefore acknowledges the need to define them as carriers of strategic capabilities. Illustrates these three perspectives with a case of redesigned industrial delivery processes. Finally, discusses the impacts of the strategic perspective on the successful implementation of BPR.

Business process re‐engineering is a hot topic around management and information systems areas. However, the verdict of the new idea is not clear and reports of successful cases are not numerous. Analyses the definitions and characteristics of business process re‐engineering (BPR). Reports on a literature survey on the critical failure reasons and success factors. Recognizes that the lack of clear concepts and understanding of BPR definitions creates many problems and, therefore, compares the BPR effort with other improvement programmes such as automation, downsizing, total quality management (TQM) for a better understanding of BPR. Suggests a methodology which can be used as general guidelines for management and re‐engineers in performing BPR to enhance success for BPR efforts.

Describes an empirical study of 15 business processes in three organizations. Business process data were collected in the context of action research projects where the researcher was involved in organizational development activities. Suggests that business processes tend to cut across different departments owing to a contemporary phenomenon ‐ the specialization of knowledge. This leads to the specialization of work with the multiplication of functions and departments in organizations. Also suggests that 70 per cent or more of the product flow through business processes in organizations is made up of information. Discusses organizational implications of these results as regards organizational design and business process redesign focus.

Unlike other purchases of information technology that have failed to deliver measurable improvements in corporate performance, enterprise‐wide information systems in the manufacturing industry have immediate and positive impact on the bottom line. The transition from strategic alignment as the basis for IT investment, to redesigned business processes as the critical elements of organizational strategic planning to which IT investments must be targeted, to the integration of these processes into enterprise‐wide systems, to e‐commerce is examined. With supply chain collaboration, information systems have exited corporate boundaries.