Business process management is often considered as a top-down management activity. This view is inconsistent with the observation that information infrastructures are at drift, outside top-down management control. To reconcile both views, a meta-framework is presented that frames the interplay of the design and emergence of business processes. Business processes are identified as a particular form of organizational routines. This observation opens up a rich body of knowledge for theorizing on business processes. The design of IT artifacts is conceptualized as an engineering activity as well as a process of social construction. Emergence refers to a mutually constitutive duality of social structure and human agency.

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