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Component‐based software development is a potential reuse paradigm for the future. While the required technologies for a component‐style system development are widely available (e.g. Sun's Enterprise Java Beans), the breakthrough of the component paradigm in business application domains is impeded by the following problem: compared with traditional engineering disciplines there is a lack of standardized methods to describe business components. The objective of this paper is to develop a holistic approach to specify business components.

In this paper, a design science approach is used. Based on well‐known specification notations, a new specification framework is proposed. The usefulness of the framework is demonstrated by an example.

It is argued that a specification framework for business components has to address several aspects: what services are offered and requested by a business component? How can these services be used? Are there any interdependencies between the services of a set of business components? What quality characteristics do the offered services fulfil? And so on. The proposed approach consists of seven specification levels addressing both technical and business aspects.

According to the authors' knowledge the developed specification framework is the first one which allows a holistic description of business components. The proposed approach can be used to precisely specify business components in practice. The main contribution is to tie together various well‐known and preferably standardized specification notations. Furthermore, the authors develop a meta‐model for the proposed specification framework that facilitates the communication about the framework, supports training on the framework, and simplifies the implementation of the framework. To conclude, this work is meant to implement theory in practice.

The paper aims at providing a survey of the development of empirical research in business process management (BPM). It seeks to study trends in empirical BPM research and applied methodologies by means of a developed framework in order to identify the status quo and to assess the probable future development of the research field.

In order to analyse the development of the research field a systematic literature review of empirical journal articles in the BPM context is conducted. The retrieved literature is analyzed by means of scientometric methods and a developed reference framework.

The steadily growing number of published articles in empirical BPM research shows an increase in interest in the research field. Research interests, applied methodologies, the underlying research paradigm and the level of maturity of empirical BPM research differ depending on regional aspects. BPM gains importance in the industry as well as in the public administration context.

The findings are based on a sample of 355 articles and not on an exhaustive amount of available empirical research contributions. Nevertheless, significant analyses can be conducted. Future research could apply the developed reference framework for further literature reviews in order to be able to compare the findings and to measure progress.

The presented literature review gives an overview of trends in empirical BPM research. The developed and strictly applied reference framework supports a systematic analysis of contributions and can thus draw a significant picture of the state‐of‐the‐art of the research field. To the best knowledge of the authors no such survey has currently been undertaken.

The business operations of today's enterprises are heavily influenced by numerous of internal and external business events. With the Event Driven Architecture and particularly the Complex Event Processing (CEP), the technology required for identifying complex correlations in these large amounts of event data right after its appearance has already emerged. The resulting gain in operational transparency builds the foundation for (near) real-time reactions. This motivated extensive research activities especially in the field of Business Process Management (BPM), which essentially coined the term Event-Driven BPM (EDBPM). Now, several years after the advent of this new concept, the purpose of this paper is to shed light to the question: where are we now on our way towards a sophisticated adoption of the CEP technology within BPM?

The research methodology of this paper is a structured literature analysis. It basically follows the procedure proposed by vom Brocke et al. (2009). This verified five-step process – entitled “Reconstructing the giant” – allowed a rigorous study. As a result, various research clusters were derived, whose state-of-the-art exposed existing research gaps within EDBPM.

First of all, the paper provides a concise conceptual basis on different application possibilities of EDBPM. Afterwards, it synthesizes current research into six clusters and highlights most significant work within them. Finally, a research agenda is proposed to tackle existing research gaps to pave the way towards fully realizing the potentials of the paradigm.

So far, a comparable study of the current state-of-the-art within EDBPM is non-existent. The findings of this paper, e.g. the proposed research agenda, help scholars to focus their research efforts on specific aspects that need to be considered in order to advance the adoption of the CEP technology within BPM.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that the use of the external supply chain (SC) functionality offered by business‐to‐business electronic marketplaces (EMPs) results in improved efficiencies and reduced costs in supply chains. Anecdotal evidence also suggests, however, that most of the benefits offered by EMPs could also be achieved by an increase in the firm's internal SC capabilities. The firm's decision is thus one of seeking SC efficiencies through internal capabilities (e.g. enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems), through participation in EMPs, or through a combination of both. Seeks to examine this issue.

This paper conceptually examines the choice of using ERP systems versus EMPs within the context of value creation and competitiveness in an SC partnership. Then a dynamic, non‐linear model is proposed to support this decision.

Three findings stand out. First, while small firms are often well served with just using EMPs, large firms are better off using a well‐balanced portfolio of internal and external capabilities along with their SC processes. Second, unless a sufficient level of internal information technology capabilities is present, firms with a large scope of stock‐keeping units will not be able to significantly improve their SC effectiveness by just using EMPs. Finally, the successful acquisition of SC capabilities depends on the level of uncertainty of the associated technology and market.

This paper considers a range of organizational and environmental factors that impact the choice between EMPs and ERP systems that have not previously been considered. The findings have a major impact on the choice of internal versus external functionality to increase the firm's SC capabilities.

The purpose of this paper is to frame next‐generation enterprise systems (ES).

The model is based on a retrospective analysis of the evolution of enterprise systems, enterprise resource planning (ERP) research and emerging business requirements.

The paper proposes a conceptual framework for extended enterprise resource planning (ERP II). The aim of this model is to compile present ES concepts into a comprehensive outline of ERP II, thus composing a generic map and taxonomy for corporate‐wide enterprise systems.

The paper concludes that the ERP research needs to broaden its perspective in order to accommodate itself to the new issues of next‐generation enterprise systems.

The model is seen as a first step towards a tool to analyse and design complex enterprise systems architecture.

This paper is the first attempt to formalize and capture the ERP II concept and the next‐generation enterprise systems.

This article proposes examining how small to medium‐sized organisations (SMEs) are responding to the challenge of harnessing enterprise resource planning (ERP) and internet technologies to enhance performance and improve competitiveness and aims to identify the barriers preventing organisations from harnessing these technologies.

A case‐based research strategy was chosen. Four leading SMEs were interviewed to determine their approach to extended ERP and the barriers encountered. The primary data collection was based on structured in‐depth interviews with key respondents who were involved in the implementation of extended ERP and closely involved in day‐to‐day operations.

While each of the SMEs had already taken some steps to extended ERP, they adopted a cautious approach to the future. In short, SMEs considering extended ERP should determine the impact on all organisations before proceeding and should also apply the lessons learned from their initial ERP implementation.

Single company case studies could be used to uncover some of the causal mechanisms behind the processes observed. Within‐sector case studies could be used to highlight the issues faced by particular sectors. Cross‐sector case studies could be used to validate the article's conclusions as well as to elucidate differences among sectors.

Managers of SMEs embarking on extended ERP should consider the following challenges: business processes, whether internal or external, must be examined and redesigned as necessary to take advantage of the new technology; an effective change management and communications programme must be run; the lessons learned from the original ERP implementation should be revisited and mistakes made in the past avoided; and a strong business case needs to be developed, with clear objectives and critical success factors.

While the internet has facilitated a shift towards dynamic communication and improved integration, the complexity of integrating electronic supply chain management, e‐procurement and customer relationship management poses an enormous challenge for organisations. This research study indicates that there are multiple ways in which extended ERP can be achieved to add value to SMEs but it is not simply a matter of adding a new application.

The application landscapes of major companies all have their own complex structure. Data have to be exchanged between or distributed to the various applications. Systemizing different data integration patterns on a conceptual level can help to avoid uncontrolled redundancy and support the design process of data integration solutions. Each pattern provides a solution for certain data integration requirements and makes the design process more effective by reusing approved solutions. Proposes identifying these patterns.

After a broad literature review data were obtained from interviews and documentary sources. Ten semi‐structured interviews were conducted within four different companies operating in the financial service industry. EAI‐ and IT‐architects as well as project managers and CTOs were involved in these interviews.

Five different data integration patterns were identified. Solutions for upcoming data integration requirements can be designed using these patterns. Advantages and disadvantages as well as typical usage scenarios are discussed for each identified data integration pattern.

In order to identify data dependencies, to detect redundancies and to conduct further investigations, a consistent methodology for the description of application landscapes has to be developed. The presented design patterns are one part of this methodology only. The approach in this paper only considers data integration while in reality there are also other integration requirements like functional or process‐oriented integration.

The identified design patterns help practitioners (e.g. IT‐architects) to design solutions for data integration requirements. They can map the conceptual patterns to company specific technologies or products to realize the solution physically.

The design patterns are indifferent from any technology or products which ensure a broad application. Business requirements (e.g. requirement for autonomous processing) are considered first when designing a data integration solution.

Proposes providing an insight about enterprise resource planning (ERP) adoption, highlighting contact points and significant differences between the way small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) and large companies approach such a task.

The research is based on a wide literature review, focused on the identification of a taxonomy of business and organizational factors influencing ERP adoption. The deriving research model was incorporated in a questionnaire that was preliminarily tested and finally provided to a sample of 366 companies of any size. Responses were collected through personal interviews made by a dedicated team to a top manager.

The analysis of the empirical data shows that business complexity, as a composed factor, is a weak predictor of ERP adoption, whereas just company size turns out to be a very good one. In other words, companies seem to be disregarding ERP systems as an answer to their business complexity. Unexpectedly, SMEs disregard financial constraints as the main cause for ERP system non‐adoption, suggesting structural and organizational reasons as major ones. This pattern is partially different from what was observed in large organizations where the first reason for not adopting an ERP system is organizational. Moreover, the decision process regarding the adoption of ERP systems within SMEs is still more affected by exogenous reasons or “opportunity of the moment” than business‐related factors, contrary to large companies that are more interested in managing process integration and data redundancy/inconsistency through ERP implementation.

The research model is based on the assumption that business complexity and organizational change are the most relevant variables influencing ERP adoption, and such variables are explained through a set of factors inherently limited by the results of the literature review.

The results of the empirical research provide indication to SMEs willing to take into consideration the adoption of an ERP system. The same outcomes could be incorporated into the development strategies of ERP software houses.

This paper contributes to enhancing the understanding of the factors influencing the evolution of information systems within SMEs with respect to large companies.

The need for an integrated enterprise‐wide approach to management information pronounced data warehousing (DW) the “hot topic” of the early‐to‐mid‐1990s. However, it became unfashionable in the late 1990s, with the widespread implementation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. With ERP managers were led to believe that they would derive informational as well as operational benefits from the introduction of integrated enterprise‐wide systems. However, the recent re‐emergence of DW, to address the limitations and unrealised benefits of ERP systems, provides a new, more complex integration challenge. The main objective of this paper is to present the concept of organisational prerequisites for enterprise‐wide integration projects as a means to help managers preparing for and managing their ERP/DW projects.

This paper draws on existing literature on ERP and DW implementations. It puts forward a model to be further tested and validated by ERP researchers.

The proposed model has the potential to solve the problems experienced in ERP implementations and, more generally, in projects leading to large‐scale enterprise integration.

Existing ERP research indicates that the intelligence phase of most ERP projects is ignored both in practice and in research. This paper lays the foundation for a framework that addresses this problem.