Purpose Many researchers and practitioners suggest a contingent instead of a “one size fits all” approach in business process management (BPM). The purpose of this paper is to offer a contingency theory of BPM, which proposes contingency factors relevant to the successful management of business processes and that explains how and why these contingencies impact the relationships between process management and performance. Design/methodology/approach The authors develop the theory by drawing on organizational information processing theory (OIPT) and applying an information processing (IP) perspective to the process level. Findings The premise of the model is that the process management mechanisms such as documentation, standardization or monitoring must compensate for the uncertainty and equivocality of the nature of the process that has to be managed. In turn, managing through successful adaptation is a prerequisite for process performance. Research limitations/implications The theory provides a set of testable propositions that specify the relationship between process management mechanisms and process performance. The authors also discuss implications of the new theory for further theorizing and outline empirical research strategies that can be followed to enact, evaluate and extend the theory. Practical implications The theory developed in this paper allows an alternative way to describe organizational processes and supports the derivation of context-sensitive management approaches for process documentation, standardization, monitoring, execution and coordination. Originality/value The theoretical model is novel in that it provides a contextualized view on BPM that acknowledges different types of processes and suggests different mechanisms for managing these. The authors hope the paper serves as inspiration both for further theory development as well as to empirical studies that test, refute, support or otherwise augment the arguments.

中文翻译：

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或有业务流程管理理论

目的许多研究人员和从业人员建议在业务流程管理（BPM）中采用偶然性而非“一刀切”的方法。本文的目的是提供BPM的权变理论，它提出了与业务流程成功管理相关的权变因素，并解释了这些意外事件如何以及为什么影响过程管理与绩效之间的关系。设计/方法论/方法作者通过借鉴组织信息处理理论（OIPT）并将信息处理（IP）观点应用于过程级别来发展该理论。结果该模型的前提是过程管理机制，例如文档，标准化或监视必须补偿必须管理的流程性质的不确定性和模棱两可。反过来，通过成功的适应进行管理是过程性能的前提。研究的局限性/意义该理论提供了一组可检验的命题，这些命题规定了过程管理机制与过程绩效之间的关系。作者还讨论了新理论对进一步理论化的意义，并概述了可以遵循的实证研究策略，以制定，评估和扩展该理论。实际意义本文提出的理论提供了一种替代的方式来描述组织过程，并支持派生上下文相关的管理方法，用于过程文档，标准化，监控，执行与协调。原创性/价值理论模型是新颖的，因为它提供了有关BPM的上下文视图，该视图认可了不同类型的流程并提出了用于管理这些流程的不同机制。作者希望本文能为进一步的理论发展以及检验，反驳，支持或以其他方式增加论点的经验研究提供启发。