Reconstruction of Different Business Processes - A Theory and Method Driven Analysis

When evaluating and developing organisations, the business process perspective is a popular one to use. Several methods exist and there are new ones being developed. When evaluating and/or developing organisations from a business process perspective, there is a need to reconstruct existing business processes. We have experienced problems in distinguishing and delimiting business processes in relation to each other. There is a need for criteria. Within the language/action perspective a more clear process notion can be formulated, which supports a clear process delimitation. In this paper we are showing a coupling between a method driven and a theory driven approach for reconstruction of different business processes. The business action theory, which is based on the language/action approach, gives us support in guidance for reconstruction of different business processes, i.e. asking questions based on communicative action theories. We also present a method for process and action modelling. The presented theory and method have been used in an action oriented case study, which is used to show experiences and drawing conclusions from one theory and method driven analysis of business processes.