Determinants to the Use of Business Process Modeling

This article addresses a theoretical gap in the BPM literature on factors that influence the acceptance of process modeling (PM) in organizations. Literature review on PM and 34 qualitative interviews were combined into a PM acceptance model and empirically tested with data from 74 companies showing that PM is to a large extent a mandated activity, explaining the missing link between PM attitudes on PM intention. The study extends the TAM and the TPB to the context of process modeling and demonstrates that less studied socio-political factors in addition to awareness of PM are important to understand PM acceptance. The findings show that social influence from different stakeholder reference groups should be analyzed separately to reveal their influence on PM acceptance. The results have theoretical implications for the study of technology acceptance in general and for PM acceptance in particular and practical implications for the management of PM.