An economic decision model for determining the appropriate level of business process standardization

Patrick Afflerbach (), Manuel Bolsinger () and Maximilian Röglinger ()
Additional contact information
Patrick Afflerbach: University of Augsburg
Manuel Bolsinger: University of Augsburg
Maximilian Röglinger: University of Bayreuth

Business Research, 2016, vol. 9, issue 2, No 5, 335-375

Abstract: Abstract Business process management (BPM) is an acknowledged source of corporate performance. A well-established element of the BPM toolbox by which organizations intend to tune the performance of their processes is business process standardization (BPS). So far, research on BPS has predominantly taken a descriptive perspective, analyzing how BPS affects different dimensions of process performance (e.g., cost, quality, time, flexibility). Only very few studies capitalize on the mature body of descriptive BPS knowledge to assist in determining an appropriate BPS level for an organization’s processes. Moreover, these studies do not resolve the BPS trade-off, i.e., the partly conflicting effects of BPS on process performance. To address this research problem, we propose a decision model that provides guidance on how to determine an economically appropriate BPS level for a business process. We thereby adopt the design science research (DSR) paradigm and draw from the body of knowledge on BPS as well as value-based management. We evaluated the decision model by discussing its design specification against theory-backed design objectives. We also validated the model’s applicability and usefulness in a real-world case where we applied the decision model and a prototypical implementation to the coverage switching processes of an insurance broker pool company. Finally, we challenged the decision model against the accepted evaluation criteria from the DSR literature.

Keywords: Business process management; Business process standardization; Decision model; Process performance management; Value-based management (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s40685-016-0035-6 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:busres:v:9:y:2016:i:2:d:10.1007_s40685-016-0035-6

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/journal/40685

DOI: 10.1007/s40685-016-0035-6

Access Statistics for this article

Business Research is currently edited by Thomas Gehrig

More articles in Business Research from Springer, German Academic Association for Business Research Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().