Applying Structuration Theory to Investigate Business Process Change

As international competition is still growing and customer orientation comes more into focus, organizations increasingly seek to understand and manage business processes. In order to achieve operational excellence many organizations try to transform or standardize business processes, prominently termed business process change. This paper provides new insights into the management of business process change by taking a structurational perspective. I conducted a case study in an IT service organization and tried to elicit what social processes exactly contribute to the success of business process change initiatives. Therefore, I made a finer distinction between a work and a build level of business process management to account for a more accurate investigation of underlying factors.