Conjoint Management of Business Processes and Information Technologies: An Empirical Investigation

Information technologies have reached the stage where their usefulness is assessed by how they enable organizations to act smarter, faster, more efficiently and more creatively. Business value, rather than by technology artifacts themselves, is created by the ways information technologies enable and improve business processes. As a consequence, there is a growing need to address managerial aspects of the relationships between information technologies and business processes. The aim of this PhD study is to investigate how the practice of conjoint management of business processes and information technologies can be supported and improved.

The study is organized into five research papers and this summary. Each paper addresses a different aspect of conjoint management of business processes and information technologies, i.e. problem development and managerial practices on software/process and organizational levels. The summary reports on the overall theoretical research framing and design, as well as provides a discussion across the papers.

The study is carried out in close collaboration with one of the largest Danish enterprises. It uses action research methodology to influence and study changes resulting from systems and process implementations and their corporate-level management aspects. It reports on four case studies of industrial projects representing different perspectives of the studied phenomenon. The first case study pertains to the interdependencies between business processes and information technologies in a project environment. It states that both elements are intrinsically related and should be designed and considered together. The second case examines the relationships between information technology management and business process management. It discusses the multi-faceted role of technology in supporting process management and proposes four archetypes of process-driven IT/business partnerships. The third case study shows how companies can use technology artifacts in order to improve process management in organizations. It provides a set of recommendations for academics and practitioners on how to increase the applicability of business intelligence in real-life settings. Finally, the fourth case deals with the management of capability structures required to manage business processes and information technologies in a conjoint manner. It states that dividing competencies between the IT unit and the business is highly contingent because redesigning processes requires combined, applied and situated knowledge from both domains.

The study concludes that conjoint management of business processes and information technologies can be supported by planning and executing organizational change while considering IT systems and business processes as two intrinsically related, non-alternative components of a single design. Furthermore it can be supported by determining the role of IT in realizing the strategic process intent of the enterprise and selecting the corresponding archetype of IT/business partnerships. Conjoint management of business processes and information technologies can be improved with IT applications providing holistic and seamless coverage of the steps required to execute, analyze and improve business processes. It can also be improved on the organizational level with process-driven capability structures and governance mechanisms.