Four facets of a process modeling facilitator

Business process modeling as a practice and research field has received great attention in recent years. However, while related artifacts such as models, tools or grammars have substantially matured, comparatively little is known about the activities that are conducted as part of the actual act of process modeling. Especially the key role of the modeling facilitator has not been researched to date. In this paper, we propose a new theory-grounded, conceptual framework describing four facets (the driving engineer, the driving artist, the catalyzing engineer, and the catalyzing artist) that can be used by a facilitator. These facets with behavioral styles have been empirically explored via in-depth interviews and additional questionnaires with experienced process analysts. We develop a proposal for an emerging theory for describing, investigating, and explaining different behaviors associated with Business Process Modeling Facilitation. This theory is an important sensitizing vehicle for examining processes and outcomes from process modeling endeavors

PROCESS MODELS AS TRANSFORMATION VEHICLE FOR STRATEGIC ALIGNMENT

Practitioners within the IS-field tend to engage in different kind of modelling activities for the purpose of analysis, design and evaluation of information systems. Business process models has been used for several purposes such as reconstructing existing practice (AS-IS) and to design the future (TO-BE). So far little research has been conducted on process modelling practices, the role and characteristics of models mean for business transformation. This paper elaborates on the role of process models as transformation vehicle to create alignment between a strategic business plan and business processes. The empirical base in this paper is an action research project where researchers together with a retail chain in sports and recreation (Intersport), as a part of a bigger change program, has designed Intersport´s future practice based on a new strategic business plan. The results in the paper are descriptions about the role, characteristics and usage of different models during process design. The design of the future is a transformational process where models will have different roles during different phases of the project; scoping models, chiseling models, design models and change models. Good design results can be ensured through that the business process models in the end manage to express vital business dimensions such as transformation, coordination and interaction. The conclusions also depict the need for incremental design to create strategic alignment. The main reason for this is that people need to digest the evolving design in order to be able to understand characteristics and consequences of the final design

The Emergence of a Multi-Organizational View on Business Processes – Experiences from a Double-loop Action Research Approach

In this paper the need for a multi-organizational perspective on business processes is outlined and a multi-grounded solution based on double-loop action research approach is proposed. Today, contemporary organizations’ capability to collaborate is an important competitive advantage and aligning in business networks is an increasingly common business model. Such development emphasizes the need for knowledge regarding how collaborative businesses could be characterized and how the constituent business interactions could be structured as several dyadic relationships in a multi-actor setting. The multiorganizational perspective proposed in this paper builds on pragmatic foundations and combines a language/action approach with a coordinative view on business processes, enabling design of complete action patterns

CHALLENGES IN ESTABLISHING SUSTAINABLE INNOVATION

Within the field of information systems an interest in environmental issues has driven the agenda for research from green IT improvement to sustainable innovation. A challenge yet to investigate is how sustainable innovation involving a cluster of actors from multiple settings should be 1) designed and 2) orchestrated so that the innovation performed enables sustainable change. Processes for launching sustainable innovation should consequently be analysed in order to further investigate this notion. In northern Europe there is today a strong drive towards enabling initiatives utilizing mobile information technology improving the everyday transportation of people. This paper analysis the launch of a research and innovation cluster with the aim to develop information infrastructures and processes that stimulate distributed development of digital services for everyday travel. Events performed during the two-year start-up have been analysed identifying essential actions for network design and innovation orchestration, creating hypotheses, which enables further research about the establishment of sustainable innovation

Developing eInteractions - A Framework for Business Capabilities and Exchanges

The development of e-interactions (IT supported business interaction) need to be facilitated by comprehensive frameworks for business interaction. Existing frameworks cover fragments of the important constituents of business interaction. Based on a review of existing frameworks a more comprehensive one is presented in this paper. This comprehensive framework builds upon a symmetric focus on a supplier and on a customer. Attention is directed towards both communicative and material/financial exchanges. It distinguishes between different levels (markets level and dyadic level) of business interaction and acknowledges the dynamics of business interaction as the continual development of capabilities and business relations. On the dyadic level a distinction is made between frame contracting and business transaction. The proposed framework should be and has been used for evaluating, modelling and designing e-interactions

Challenging Dyadic Interaction in the Context of Multi-Organizational Business Processes

Value creation of today is often a co-production in multi-organizational settings. This requires knowledge about how to conceive multi-organizational actor roles as foundations for co-ordinating and efficiently co-produce customer value. Some contemporary business process modelling approaches builds upon modelling interaction between two business parties (i.e. dyadic interaction), but do not acknowledge interaction patterns involving several network actors in their different actor roles. In this paper value creation in multi-organizational businesses are seen as value chains in value networks. The notion of assignments is the underlying structure in a multi-organizational perspective on business processes and is used to create foundations for distinguishing interaction patterns. Modelling and improving multi-organizational business processes conceived as action and interaction arranged in assignment structures, imply that dyadic role models need to be challenged as generative instruments. In this paper four generic multi-organizational network actor roles are brought forward (end-customer, main actor, co-ordinating actor, and co-producing actor) given meaning in and further instantiated in generic assignment actor roles based on their involvement in different multi-organizational interaction patterns. Thus, patterns of interaction constituting multi-organizational business processes are distinguished creating the necessary conditions for diverse network actors by the identification of their role in the action logic

Dividing Multi-Organizational Businesses into Processes: Capturing Value Creation in Assignment Structures

Business transactions of today often rely on the involvement of several organizations in its preparation and realization. This means that value creation is distributed among several actors and needs to be coordinated. The division of multi-organizational businesses into business processes need to reflect the co-production of value arranged in distributed value production structures. There relies however an unresolved quest of which criteria that should govern such division of business processes. In this paper, business processes for conceiving multi-organizational businesses are identified founded in how customer assignments embed and integrate other assignments through value chains in value networks. Five core process types are identified founded in this assignment structure; development processes, planning processes, provision processes, order fulfilment processes, and evaluation processes. These processes are of both condition creating and realization characteristics to enable an efficient co-ordination of the multi-organizational business

Physical and Digital Innovation in Shipping: Seeding, Standardizing, and Sequencing

Two innovations within shipping are analyzed. (1) Containerization, an analog innovation that commenced about 50 years ago, created a new system for the handling of global trade and drove shipping costs to the point of financial irrelevance. (2) Sea traffic management is an EU digital innovation in process that aims to revolutionize the shipping business. We identify the seed innovation, which in each case initiates a standardization process and a series of sequenced and coordinated innovations that created a new transport system in one case, and are planned to fashion a smarter system in the second. We conclude with some research questions on seed innovations and the sequencing of innovations for new system emergence.

Proceedings of the Inaugural Meeting ofAIS SIGPrag

The Special Interest Group on Pragmatist IS Research (SIGPrag) was approved by the Association for InformationSystems (AIS) council at its June 2008 meeting in Gallway. The motivation for this initiative is the growingrecognition of the importance of theorizing the IT artifact and its organizational and societal context from apragmatic and action-oriented perspective. SIGPrag\u27s mission is to provide a much-needed centre of gravity and tofacilitate exchange of ideas and further development of this area of IS scholarship.In summary, pragmatist IS research rests on the following set of assumptions: * Human life is a life of activity.* Humans do things that effect changes in their environment and/or within themselves.* Doing permeates thinking, conceptualizations and language use.* Human consciousness is a practical one that is in constant interplay with interventive, investigative, andevaluative actions.* Practical consciousness is formed by experience from previous actions and participation in social contexts.* IT and information systems are fundamentally symbolic language systems.* Linguistically expressed collective presuppositions, norms and categories (such as those embedded in ITand information systems) serve human activity and life.* The true value of IT and information systems lies in their potential to support human communication andcollaboration central to human activity and life.For more information about SIGPrag, its mission and current activities, please visit http://www.sigprag.org/The inaugural meeting of SIGPrag is to be held in Paris on Dec 14, 2008, in conjunction with the InternationalConference on Information Systems (ICIS). The meeting will consist of two parts, a scientific meeting and abusiness meeting. For the scientific meeting a call for position papers was issued in the summer of 2008, whichresulted in the following papers being selected for presentation:• What Kind of Pragmatism in Information Systems Research? by Göran Goldkuhl.• Pragmatic Approach in IS Projects Grounded on Recognised Frameworks by Raija Halonen.• Co-Design as Social Constructive Pragmatism by Mikael Lind, Ulf Seigerroth, Olov Forsgren, and AndersHjalmarsson.• Pragmatism and Information Systems (IS): Neurophilosophical approach by Garikoitz Lerma Usabiagaand Francesc Miralles.• Sustainability Communication: A role for IT and IS in relating business and Society by Mark Aakhus andPaul Ziek.• Managing Ambiguity while Reducing Uncertainty by Gianni Jacucci and Mike Martin.• A Pragmatic Conception of Service Encounters by Mikael Lind and Nicklas Salomonson.• Making the Web More Pragmatic: Exploring the Potential Of Some Pragmatic Concepts For IS ResearchAnd Development by Jens Allwood and Mikael Lind.• Introducing Human in Complex System: A Cognitive Pragmatics Based Model by G. Lortal.• The Pragmatic Web: An Application View by Mareike Schoop.• Design Research from a Communicative Perspective: How to Design Things with Words by Hans Weigand.• Representation and Correspondence: On the Validity of the Representation Assumption in InformationSystem Design by Pär J. Ågerfalk and Owen Eriksson.• Habermas’ theory in action by Jan L.G. Dietz.• Challenges to Information Systems Development by Roland Kaschek.The idea behind this inaugural meeting was to bring together people that share an affinity with pragmatist ISresearch and to initiate a scientific discussion about the role of pragmatist research in IS. We certainly hope that thisdiscussion will continue over the years to come. The papers are freely available for download athttp://www.sigprag.org