No abstract

Purpose Many researchers and practitioners suggest a contingent instead of a “one size fits all” approach in business process management (BPM). The purpose of this paper is to offer a contingency theory of BPM, which proposes contingency factors relevant to the successful management of business processes and that explains how and why these contingencies impact the relationships between process management and performance. Design/methodology/approach The authors develop the theory by drawing on organizational information processing theory (OIPT) and applying an information processing (IP) perspective to the process level. Findings The premise of the model is that the process management mechanisms such as documentation, standardization or monitoring must compensate for the uncertainty and equivocality of the nature of the process that has to be managed. In turn, managing through successful adaptation is a prerequisite for process performance. Research limitations/implications The theory provides a set of testable propositions that specify the relationship between process management mechanisms and process performance. The authors also discuss implications of the new theory for further theorizing and outline empirical research strategies that can be followed to enact, evaluate and extend the theory. Practical implications The theory developed in this paper allows an alternative way to describe organizational processes and supports the derivation of context-sensitive management approaches for process documentation, standardization, monitoring, execution and coordination. Originality/value The theoretical model is novel in that it provides a contextualized view on BPM that acknowledges different types of processes and suggests different mechanisms for managing these. The authors hope the paper serves as inspiration both for further theory development as well as to empirical studies that test, refute, support or otherwise augment the arguments.

Purpose While researchers and practitioners agree on the importance to adapt business process management (BPM) practices to the nature of processes, the authors observe a lack of research on how to most meaningfully distinguish processes in order to apply context-specific BPM practices that increase process efficiency and effectiveness. The purpose of this paper is to systematically analyze the nature of processes as one contextual factor for BPM. Design/methodology/approach Based on a literature review, the authors systematically derive process dimensions that describe the nature of processes and apply an information-processing perspective to the process level as a theoretical lens through which to analyze and structure these process dimensions. Findings The authors identified 36 dimensions used to describe process differences that can be consolidated into five generic dimensions based on an information-processing perspective: interdependence of process participants, differentiation of process participants, process analyzability, variability, and importance. Research limitations/implications The paper derives process dimensions from the literature and links them to extant theories as a foundation for context-sensitive BPM. The findings serve as a basis for further conceptualizing BPM and for explaining seemingly contradicting findings about whether management practices increase or decrease organizational performance. Practical implications While the paper focuses on understanding and explaining process differences, the authors also demonstrate how these dimensions can be used to make strategic management decisions in order to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of processes. Originality/value The authors systematically conceptualize process differences as a foundation for contingent process management. In addition, the authors demonstrate that organizational processes provide a new field of application for information-processing theory.

Organizational processes vary. Practitioners have developed simple frameworks to differentiate them. Surprisingly, the academic literature on process management does not–it typically strives for one method to manage all processes. We draw on organizational information-processing theory to systematically develop a new, theoretically motivated classification model for organizational processes. We validate this model using survey data from 141 process practitioners of a global corporation. We derive three distinct types of processes and demonstrate that an understanding of process variety based on process dimensions can differentiate processes better than existing frameworks used in practice. Our findings can enable process managers to make informed decisions and serve as a basis for contingent process management.

Several studies have shown that video games may indicate or even develop intellectual and cognitive abilities. As intelligence is one of the most widely used predictors of job performance, video games could thus have potential for personnel assessment. However, few studies have investigated whether and how virtual reality (VR) games can be used to make inferences about intelligence, even though companies increasingly use VR technology to recruit candidates. This proof-of-concept study contributes to bridging this gap between research and practice. Under controlled laboratory conditions, 103 participants played the commercial VR game Job Simulator and took the short version of the intelligence test BIS-4. Correlation and regression analysis reveal that, on average, participants who completed the game more quickly than others had higher levels of general intelligence and processing capacity, suggesting that VR games may provide useful supplementary tools in the prediction of job performance. Still, our results also indicate that game-based assessments have limitations that deserve researchers’ attention, which lead us to discuss directions for future research.