Developing an Organizational Culture Supportive of Business Process Management

In recent years, a holistic understanding of business process management (BPM) has evolved in Information Systems (IS) research. This understanding considers organizational factors such as strategic alignment, governance, people, and culture as important aspects of BPM beyond Information Technology (IT) and methods. Particularly, organizational culture has been increasingly recognized as a critical success factor for the efficiency and effectiveness of business processes. While existing research already examined which cultural values determine a supportive environment for realizing BPM objectives and how these values can be measured, it has not been explored to date how such a supportive organizational culture can be developed. Based on a review of the literature, we therefore investigate the case of a global IT software provider to gain a first understanding of strategies organizations can implement to develop a supportive cultural setting for their BPM approach. We show how these findings extend recent studies in BPM research.