Applying the BPM-Culture-Model – The Hilti Case

Business Process Management (BPM) has evolved into an important field in Information Systems Research (ISR). While Information Technology (IT) has proven to be a strong driver for business process excellence and innovation, the successful implementation of BPM initiatives essentially depends on soft factors, such as culture in particular. In many cases, cultural aspects are in fact decisive to the success or failure of IT-driven transformation projects. However, culture is still a fairly under-researched construct in our discipline. The BPMCulture-Model, presented recently in the Business Process Management Journal (BPMJ), intends to prove a first conceptualisation of culture in BPM. While the model is based on a structured literature review, it has not been evaluated yet. In this paper, we apply parts of this model to analyse the case of a large scale BPM transformation project at the Hilti corporation in order to evaluate the explanatory power of the model. Our approach confirms that the model helps to better understand the role of culture in this context. In addition, we indicate directions for future research.