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Über das Zusammenwirken der Gestaltung und Emergenz von Geschäftsprozessen als Organisationsroutinen

Exploring the Interplay of the Design and Emergence of Business Processes as Organizational Routines

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WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK

Zusammenfassung

Die Entwicklung und Implementierung von Geschäftsprozessen wird primär als eine von oben nach unten durchgeführte Implementierung der Geschäftsstrategie verstanden. Obwohl diese Sichtweise zur Entwicklung vieler nützlicher IT-Artefakte für das Geschäftsprozessmanagement geführt hat, ist sie inkonsistent mit der Konzeption von driftenden Informationsinfrastrukturen, die sich einer vollständigen Steuerbarkeit entziehen. Als Lösungsbeitrag wird im vorliegenden Artikel ein theoretischer Rahmen entwickelt, in dem Geschäftsprozesse als emergente Organisationsroutinen verstanden werden, die mithilfe von IT-Artefakten abgebildet, ermöglicht und beschränkt werden. Die Entwicklung von IT-Artefakten wird einerseits als ein hierarchischer Konstruktionsprozess, andererseits als ein sozialer Konstruktionsprozess verstanden. Als Organisationsroutinen weisen Geschäftsprozesse ostensive und performative Aspekte auf, die eine sich gegenseitig konstituierende Dualität bilden. Durch eine Diskussion verwandter Forschungsarbeiten wird gezeigt, dass dieses Verständnis eine neue Perspektive auf das Geschäftsprozessmanagement darstellt. Der entwickelte theoretische Rahmen kann nachfolgende empirische Untersuchungen des Zusammenwirkens der Gestaltung und Emergenz von Geschäftsprozessen fundieren.

Abstract

Much of the BPM literature views business process design and implementation as a top-down process that is built on strategic alignment and managerial control. While this view has enabled the design of many IT artifacts for business processes, it is inconsistent with the observation that information infrastructures, including a company’s business process infrastructure, are at drift, a term that refers to the lack of top-down management control. The paper contributes to resolving this inconsistency by developing a meta-framework that conceptualizes business processes as emergent organizational routines that are represented, enabled, and constrained by IT artifacts. IT artifacts are developed in processes of functional-hierarchical decomposition and social design processes. Organizational routines have ostensive and performative aspects, forming a mutually constitutive duality. A literature review demonstrates that the propositions offered by the meta-framework have been insufficiently considered in the BPM field. The paper concludes with an outlook to applying the meta-framework to theorize about the interplay of design projects with the subsequent emergence of business processes in organizations.

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Notes

  1. Eine kleinere Anzahl älterer Beiträge war nicht elektronisch durchsuchbar, sodass eine Sichtinspektion dieser Beiträge vorgenommen wurde, um ihre Relevanz für den vorliegenden Artikel einzuschätzen.

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Correspondence to Daniel Beverungen.

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Angenommen nach einer Überarbeitung durch Prof. Dr. Martin Bichler.

Der aktuelle Beitrag ist eine Weiterentwicklung von Beverungen D (2013) On the design of IT artifacts and the emergence of business processes as organizational routines. In: 34th International conference on information systems, Milan, Italy.

This article is also available in English via http://www.springerlink.com and http://www.bise-journal.org: Beverungen D (2014) Exploring the Interplay of the Design and Emergence of Business Processes as Organizational Routines. Bus Inf Syst Eng. doi: 10.1007/s12599-014-0335-3.

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Beverungen, D. Über das Zusammenwirken der Gestaltung und Emergenz von Geschäftsprozessen als Organisationsroutinen. Wirtschaftsinf 56, 209–222 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11576-014-0425-3

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