Toward a Formal Approach to Process Bundling in Public Administrations

Abstract

Abstract. Excessive information and data exchanges between companies and public administrations create a need for the bundling of processes. Process bundles are created whenever cross-organizational processes are combined or interlinked. While a considerable amount of literature addressing the process of reorganizing, optimizing, or reengineering processes exists, much less is known about concrete approaches which facilitate the identification of suitable process bundles. This paper presents a review of identification criteria relevant for process bundling. Our literature review is deliberately broad, encompassing work in the fields of process management, reengineering, and E-Government. The analysis discloses that the plain focus on secondary process identification criteria (e.g., inefficiencies and redundancies) neglects to assess if the processes actually fit together. Premised on these results, we synthesize the insights from the cited literature into a methodological intermediary step to support the purposeful elicitation of bundling candidates.

Application of semiotics in organizational communication

“…Through the existence of informational, formal or informal flows, information permeates all the company's environments, forming part of the organizational processes in a natural way, and can exist in a registered and unregistered form. The formal flows are derived from the company's own structure, that is, routines and elements applied to the productive actions, being related to the organizational chart of the company (Jurisch, Wolf, & Krcmar, 2010). In this case, the information recorded goes through the company's formal systems: corporate portals, Intranet networks, reports, records, documents containing standards and codes, among others.…”

Bundling Processes Between Private and Public Organizations

“…Instead of delving into detailed analysis right off the bat, researchers may save resources by delimiting the field early on and highlighting processes which warrant in-depth analysis. An essential trait of this approach is that one is limited to the use of a single primary principle, i.e., processes cannot be structured by their context-and their content-related similarities at the same time (Jurisch, et al, 2010).…”

“…By associating B2G contacts with the respective encompassing process -in this case the loan award process -it is possible to structure them in a way that is more congruent with their business context. As an example of this method, Jurisch et al (2010) use an industry specific process landscape in order to analyze B2G contacts of financial service providers. By identifying contacts which belong to the same process cluster, they obtain a basic structure for identifying processes as bundling candidates.…”

“…Consequently, it seems reasonable to turn to the business sector for guidance on this issue. It becomes apparent, however, that BPR-related approaches do not necessarily lend themselves easily to corresponding applications in the public sector (Jurisch et al, 2010). In particular, bureaucratic principles impose unique requirements and restrictions on any potential process changes, as does the concept of federalism.…”

Process and Data-Oriented Approach for Bundling Corporate Reporting Duties to Public Authorities – A Case Study on the Example of Waste Management Reporting

“…The goal is to replace the redundancy of reporting duties through the reuse of available data. According to [29], process bundling is concerned with changing or redirecting flow of data between activities without changing the actual content of the data.…”