Critical success factors for different stages of business process management adoption – a case study

Many organisations fail in their attempt to adopt business process management (BPM). Although general critical success factors (CSFs) are well understood, we argue that CSFs are not the same for all stages of BPM adoption. The purpose of this article is to identify the CSFs in different stages of BPM adoption. A case study approach was used to analyse a successful BPM adoption in a public company. The article provides empirical insights about CSFs in individual stages of BPM adoption. We find that the guidance of external consultants was very important, although this factor is not commonly recognised in the literature. The article shows that the identification of well-known CSFs of BPM adoption gives only a limited view since the factors change between stages. Organisations need to carefully identify the stage and prepare a roadmap for their BPM adoption

Effective leadership in BMP implementations: A case study of BPM in a developing country, public sector context

Public sector organizations across the globe have shown a keen interest in adopting BPM, yet research studies have identified many obstacles impeding successful BPM outcomes. While leadership has been emphasized as critical for BPM to succeed, it is still an under-researched area in BPM. The limited discourse on BPM leadership is a-theoretical and provides few guidelines on what effective BPM leadership is. This paper views BPM leadership from a Complexity Leadership Theory (CLT) perspective and applies the Actor-Network Theory (ANT) to assist in understanding the complex social networks in leading continuous process improvement. Employing an in-depth single case, this study explores a successful BPM initiative in a Sri Lankan public-sector organization. The study results provide a rich understanding of leadership actions that support BPM success, which can be applied by practitioners to support BPM-leadership practice, and for future research investigating the role of leadership within BPM contexts