On the Importance of Organisational Culture and Structure in Business Process Maturity.

This article is dedicated to advance knowledge of the organisational role that culture and structure may have in business process maturity. The latter is a measure for the expected business process performance. Particularly, a two-fold approach was followed to explore whether the sequence of realising both organisational concepts matters. First, data mining was applied to find an existence dependency between a process-oriented organisational culture and structure among existing maturity types. Secondly, a literature study was conducted to find management theories that explain the interrelationship between business processes and a process-oriented organisational culture and structure. It turned out that a process-oriented organisational culture and structure are important to business process maturity, but to a different degree. As the organisational culture should precede the organisational structure, no business process maturity type affects structure, without affecting culture. This finding may help organisations reorganise properly, and underpins a holistic business process management discipline

Bridging the gap between business process models and service-oriented architectures with reference to the grid environment

In recent years, organisations have been seeking technological solutions for enacting their business process models using ad-hoc and heuristic approaches. However, limited results have been obtained due to the expansion of business processes across geographical boundaries and the absence of structured methods, frameworks and/or Information Technology (IT) infrastructures to enact these processes. In an attempt to enact business process models using distributed technologies, we introduce a novel architectural framework to bridge the gap between business process models and Grid-aware Service-Oriented Architectures (GSOA). BPMSOA framework is aligned with the Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) approach and is instantiated for role-based business process models [in particular Role Activity Diagramming (RAD)], using mobile process languages such as pi-ADL. The evaluation of the BPMSOA framework using the Submission process from the digital libraries domain has revealed that role-based business process models can be successfully enacted in GSOA environments with certain limitations. © 2011 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd

Maturity of business controlling in a global technology company

Business controlling’s changing role towards a business partner has been receiving much attention in academic literature and organisations for many years. It is expected that by becoming more business-oriented business controlling is able to deliver more value to organisations and have greater contribution to achieving organisational goals. However, as this role change is a complex and highly contextual process, it seems that in many organisations business controlling is unable to succeed in achieving the desired level of business partnering. Further research is required regarding this increasingly business-oriented role of business controlling to enhance the understanding on how it can be successfully pursued in organisations. This master’s thesis studies the maturity of business controlling in a global technology company. The objective of the study was to analyse how business controlling supports top management work and decision-making, how it can improve the support and how its role can be developed towards the role of a business partner. The thesis was conducted as a qualitative single case study. The empirical data was collected through semi-structured interviews with the financial and business management of the case company. The findings from the current state analysis show that the role of business controlling varies significantly within the organisation. In some respect business controlling is actively involved in the business and exhibits high business orientation especially at the highest management and business unit level. Issues regarding the lack of support from business controlling are most prevalent in the lower level management and when it comes to the local business controlling functions in different areas and countries. Other issues in the case company primarily relate to the information provision aspect of business controlling and the information systems and tools. These issues were found to significantly hinder the role development of business controlling in the case company. Number of improvement areas were identified in the case company regarding people and roles, processes, information and reporting, systems and tools, and accounting and calculations. Various factors enabling and influencing the development of the business orientation of business controlling were also identified in the study as well as benefits that are expected to result from achieving the role of a business partner. Based on the results an action plan was developed for the case company for improving the support from business controlling to the business and for developing the role of business controlling towards an increasingly business-oriented role in the future

The evolving role of information specialists:change agents in process redesign

The research investigates the past, present and potential future role of Information Specialists (ISps) in process oriented companies. It tests the proposition that ISps in companies that have undertaken formal process reengineering exercises are likely to become more proactive and more business oriented (as opposed to technically oriented) than they had previously been when their organisations were organised along traditional, functional lines. A review of existing literature in the area of Business Process Reengineering and Information Management reveals a lack of consensus amongst researchers concerning the appropriate role for ISps during and after BPR. Opinion is divided as to whether IS professionals should reactively support BPR or whether IT/IS developments should be driving these initiatives. A questionnaire based ‘Descriptive Survey’ with 60 respondents is used as a first stage of primary data gathering. This is followed by follow-up interviews with 20 of the participating organisations to gather further information on their experiences. The final stage of data collection consists of further in-depth interview with four case study companies to provide an even richer picture of their experiences. The results of the questionnaire are analysed and displayed in the form of simple means, frequencies and bar graphs. The ‘NU-DIST’ computer based discourse analysis package was tried in relation to summarising the interview findings, but this proved cumbersome and a visual collation method is preferred. Overall, the researcher contends that the supposition outlined above is proven, and she concludes the research by suggesting the implications of these findings. In particular she offers a ‘Framework for Understanding and Action’ which is deemed to be relevant to both practitioners and future researchers

Towards a quality management competence framework: exploring needed competencies in quality management

Few empirical studies have focused on what quality management practitioners actually do, with even fewer studies focusing on what it actually takes to do quality management work, i.e. the competencies of quality management. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a competence-based terminology for describing general competencies of quality management work in organisations and to create a competence framework in order to understand what is needed to be a quality management practitioner. This paper is based on an embedded, qualitative multiple-case study design incorporating four Swedish large size organisations where designated quality management practitioners (n = 33) were selected and interviewed. A quality management competence framework incorporating four main quality management competence dimensions is presented: the human, the methods & process, the conceptual and the contextual competence dimensions. Four generic quality management role responsibilities are also posited: centralised & strategic, centralised & operational, local & strategic and local & operational role responsibilities. The competencies and role responsibilities are discussed in relation to the notion of emergent quality management and the emerging need of more integrative and business excellence-oriented quality management

Using Counts as Heuristics for the Analysis of Static Models

The upstream activities of software development are often viewed as both the most important, in terms of cost, and the yet the least understood, and most problematic, particularly in terms of satisfying customer requirements. Business process modelling is one solution that is being increasingly used in conjunction with traditional software development, often feeding in to requirements and analysis activities. In addition, research in Systems Engineering for Business Process Change, highlights the importance of modelling business processes in evolving and maintaining the legacy systems that support those processes. However, the major use of business process modelling, is to attempt to restructure the business process, in order to improve some given aspect, e.g., cost or time. This restructuring may be seen either as separate activity or as a pre-cursor to the development of systems to support the new or improved process. Hence, the analysis of these business models is vital to the improvement of the process, and as a consequence to the development of supporting software systems. Supporting this analysis is the focus of this paper. Business processes are typically described with static (diagrammatic) models. This paper proposes the use of measures (counts) to aid analysis and comparison of these static process descriptions. The proposition is illustrated by showing how measures can be applied to a commonly used process-modelling notation, Role Activity Diagrams (RADs). Heuristics for RADs are described and measures suggested which support those heuristics. An example process is used to show how a coupling measure can be used to highlight features in RADs useful to the process modeller. To fully illustrate the proposition the paper describes and applies a framework for the theoretical validation of the coupling measure. An empirical evaluation follows. This is illustrated by two case studies; the first based on the bidding process of a large telecommunications systems supplier, and the second a study of ten prototyping processes across a number of organisations. These studies found that roles of the same type exhibited similar levels of coupling across processes. Where roles did not adhere to tentative threshold values, further investigation revealed unusual circumstances or hidden behaviour. Notably, study of the prototyping roles, which exhibited the greatest variation in coupling, found that coupling was highly correlated with the size of the development team. This suggests that prototyping in large projects had a different process to that for small projects, using more mechanisms for communication. Hence, the empirical studies support the view that counts (measures) may be useful in the analysis of static process models

A value oriented conceptual model for innovation in local government

The political rhetoric that accompanied the introduction of eGovernment expected it to produce innovation in the way government agencies conducted themselves with citizen and business alike. It was assumed that innovation was both "good" and inevitable. This paper challenges these assumptions and presents a more realistic model of how innovation might occurs in UK local government. The model is supported by anecdotal evidence, literature and a recent study of eGoverment achievement in the UK - VIEGO. A key element in the model is the notion of innovation value

Construction informatics in Turkey: strategic role of ICT and future research directions

Construction Informatics deals with subjects ranging from strategic management of ICTs to interoperability and information integration in the construction industry. Studies on defining research directions for Construction Informatics have a history over 20 years. The recent studies in the area highlight the priority themes for Construction Informatics research as interoperability, collaboration support, intelligent sites and knowledge sharing. In parallel, today it is widely accepted in the Architecture/Engineering/Construction (AEC) industry that ICT is becoming a strategic asset for any organisation to deliver business improvement and achieve sustainable competitive advantage. However, traditionally the AEC industry has approached investing in ICT with a lack of strategic focus and low level of priority to the business. This paper presents a recent study from Turkey that is focused on two themes. The first theme investigates the strategic role of ICT implementations from an industrial perspective, and explores if organisations within the AEC industry view ICT as a strategic resource for their business practice. The second theme investigates the ‘perspective of academia’ in terms of future research directions of Construction Informatics. The results of the industrial study indicates that ICT is seen as a value-adding resource, but a shift towards the recognition of the importance of ICT in terms of value adding in winning work and achieving strategic competitive advantage is observed. On the other hand, ICT Training is found to be the theme of highest priority from the academia point of view

The conception of branding in not-for-profit SMEs

A large number of not-for-profit organisations, especially charities, have become more receptive to brands and brand management issues in their search for differentiation and the communication of their services and values (Stride, 2006). However, it is argued that a majority of small to medium sized not-for-profit enterprises (SMEs), due to limited resources, are faced with larger barriers in adapting branding approaches (Khan and Ede, 2009). Others suggest that the reluctance in considering branding in small to medium nonprofits stems from a narrow understanding of the concept (Tan, 2003), and that the misconception of branding held by many practitioners disputes the need for not-for-profits to have a brand (Saxton, 2008). Surveying a sample of not-for-profit SMEs in the UK, this paper investigates the conception of branding and the perceived barriers in adopting brand strategies within these organisations. The findings reveal the extent to which these barriers are related to the conception of branding. It helps both academia and practitioners to understand the brand management issues faced within these organisations. This is especially relevant in an era of economic downturn, when governments lack funding and seek new resources to deliver public services; hence, not-for-profits become increasingly important in both economic and social contexts (Deborah and Alfred, 2009)