Digital transformation and the new logics of business process management

ABSTRACT

Business process management (BPM) research emphasises three important logics – modelling (process), infrastructural alignment (infrastructure) and procedural actor (agency) logics. These logics capture the dominant ways of thinking in BPM, reflected in its assumptions, practices and values. While the three logics have proven useful in prior contexts, we argue that the applicability of these underlying assumptions in theorising BPM needs to be re-examined in the context of digital transformation. Based on an ethnographic study of BPM in a company undergoing digital transformation, we uncover tensions related to applying these prior logics that point to the need to update the underlying assumptions. Consequently, we propose new logics that we conceptualise as light touch processes (process), infrastructural flexibility (infrastructure) and mindful actors (agency). Our observations contribute to a rethinking of the dominant BPM logics by unpacking their dynamics in the context of digital transformation. Our study further highlight salient differences between digital transformation and IT-enabled organisational transformation contexts. We conclude by proposing new managerial approaches for BPM in digital transformation contexts.

SPECIAL ISSUE EDITORS:

• Jan Mendling, Brian T. Pentland and Jan Recker

KEYWORDS:

• Digital Transformation
• business Process Management
• organisational change
• mindfulness
• infrastructural flexibility
• light touch process
• IT-enabled organisational transformation
• logics

Acknowledgements

Our appreciation goes to the review team for their impeccable consistency and developmental feedback that significantly improved this paper. We particularly appreciate the senior editor(s) for believing in the paper throughout. Our gratitude also goes to Heli B., Eric Kipongi, Rob Gleasure and Michel Avital for their invaluable support and feedback in the development of this paper. We thank the participants of the Mediterranean Conference of Information Systems - MCIS 2018, where an early version of the paper received a best paper award.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.