Business process management education in academia: Status, challenges, and recommendations

In response to the growing proliferation of Business Process Management (BPM) in industry and the demand this creates for BPM expertise, universities across the globe are at various stages of incorporating knowledge and skills in their teaching offerings. However, there are still only a handful of institutions that offer specialized education in BPM in a systematic and in-depth manner. This article is based on a global educators’ panel discussion held at the 2009 European Conference on Information Systems in Verona, Italy. The article presents the BPM programs of five universities from Australia, Europe, Africa, and North America, describing the BPM content covered, program and course structures, and challenges and lessons learned. The article also provides a comparative content analysis of BPM education programs illustrating a heterogeneous view of BPM. The examples presented demonstrate how different courses and programs can be developed to meet the educational goals of a university department, program, or school. This article contributes insights on how best to continuously sustain and reshape BPM education to ensure it remains dynamic, responsive, and sustainable in light of the evolving and ever-changing marketplace demands for BPM expertise.

Building a methodology for context-aware business processes: insights from an exploratory case study

This paper describes the findings derived from an exploratory case study into the business processes at a leading Australian insurance provider. The business processes are frequently subjected to changes and deviations due to contextual events such as weather, financial conditions and others. In this study, we examine how context impacts business processes and how resulting business process changes are enacted. From our analysis, we suggest a methodological framework to guide organisations in the complex challenge of linking changing contextual factors with internal process design.

Developing reflective practitioners online: The business of blogs in work integrated learning

Reflective practice is widely considered across discussions around educational psychology, professional identity, employability of graduates, and generic or graduate capabilities. Critical reflection is essential for providing a bridge between the university and the workplace, and for ultimately preparing work ready graduates (Patrick et al, 2008). Work integrated learning, particularly through internships and work placements for students, is viewed as a valuable approach for students developing skills in reflective practice. Reflective journals are one of the tools often used to encourage and develop student reflection. Shifting the reflective journal to an online interface as a reflective blog presents opportunities for more meaningful, frequent and richer interaction between the key players in a work integrated learning experience. This paper examines the adoption, implementation and refinement of the use of reflective blogs in a work integrated learning unit for business students majoring in advertising, marketing and public relations disciplines. The reflective blog is discussed as a learning and assessment tool, including the approaches taken to integrate and scaffold the blog as part of the work integrated learning experience. Graduate capabilities were used as cornerstones for students to frame students’ thinking, experiences and reflection. These capabilities emphasise the value of coherent theoretical and practical knowledge, coupled with critical, creative and analytical thinking, problem solving skills, self reliance and resilience. Underlying these graduate capabilities is a focus on assessment for learning matched with assessment of learning. Using specific triggers and prompts as part of the reflective process, and incorporating ongoing feedback from academic supervisors, students moved from descriptive levels of reflection, to more meaningful and critical reflection. Students’ blogs are analysed to identify key themes, challenges and achievements in the work integrated learning experience. Suggestions for further development and improvement, together with a model of best practice, are proposed.

Maintenance person or architect? The role of academic advertising research in building better understanding

This paper suggests that, while advertising has changed, advertising research has not. Indeed, questions asked of advertising research more than 20 years ago have still not been answered. The enormity of change in advertising compounded by the lack of response from researchers suggests the traditional academic advertising research model requires more than routine maintenance. It seeks an architect with vision to redesign an academic research model that is probably broken or badly outdated. Five areas of the academic research approach are identified as needing rethinking: (1) the advertising problem, (2) sample frame and subjects, (3) assumptions regarding consumer behaviour, (4) research methodologies and (5) findings. Suggestions are made for improvement. But perhaps the biggest challenge is academic leadership. This paper proposes the establishment of a blue-ribbon panel to report back on recommended changes or improvements.

Risky business : making decisions off the cuff

In line with accepted decision making theory, individuals engage in rational decision making. Decisions made under conditions of bounded rationality may have serious adverse consequences. Employees making decisions on behalf of their employer are often faced with situations where perfect and complete information is not available, and time is limited. Under such conditions, we posit that employees will make decisions that are increasingly bounded. At its most extreme neither time nor information is available to make a decision and rational decision making, bounded or not, reaches its limits. Many authors suggest that this is the point at which improvisation takes place. Although opinion in the literature is mixed regarding the efficacy of improvised decisions, we argue that improvised decisions place the organisation at considerable risk and as a consequence are undesirable.

The airport city : a new business model for airport development

The airport city concept has been embraced by many airports of different scales and in varied ways around the world. Airports everywhere have diversified their landside revenues with non-aviation commercial and industrial development in order to increase revenues and spread risk in the notoriously volatile aviation market. As intermodal hubs in a connected, globalised world, airports have evolved from transportation nodes into multi-faceted business enterprises. They have assumed a critical role as ‘transactional’ spaces in the global economy (Gottdiener 2001).

Integrating the resource-based view and transaction cost economics in immigrant business performance

This paper presents a new integrated framework that integrates the resource-based view and transaction cost economics to explain the phenomenon of immigrant entrepreneurship. We extend the existing literature on immigrant entrepreneurship by identifying different types of ethnic network resources and demonstrating how these resources interact with transaction costs in the context of Chinese immigrants. Thus, our study contributes to the literature by providing a theoretical framework which identifies mechanisms immigrant entrepreneurs use to strategically deploy resources to minimize costs and maximize performance outcomes.

Design Led Innovation : exploring the synthesis of needs, technologies and business models

The term Design is used to describe a wide range of activities. Like the term innovation, it is often used to describe both an activity and an outcome. Many products and services are often described as being designed, as they describe a conscious process of linking form and function. Alternatively, the many and varied processes of design are often used to describe a cost centre of an organisation to demonstrate a particular competency. However design is often not used to describe the ‘value’ it provides to an organisation and more importantly the ‘value’ it provides to both existing and future customers. Design Led Innovation bridges this gap. Design Led Innovation is a process of creating a sustainable competitive advantage, by radically changing the customer value proposition. A conceptual model has been developed to assist organisations apply and embed design in a company’s vision, strategy, culture, leadership and development processes.

Diffusion of business improvement processes in manufacturing companies in India

Manufacturing organisations spend more on Business Process Improvement initiatives to make them more competitive in growing global market. This paper presents a Rapid Improvement Workshop (RIW) framework which companies can used to identify the critical factors regulating the diffusion of business process improvement in their company. The framework can then be used address how process improvement can be efficiently implemented. We use the results from case studies at Caterpillar India. The paper identifies the critical factors that contribute to the successful implementation of process improvement programs in manufacturing organisations. We further identify certain technological and cultural barriers to the implementation of process improvement programs and how Indian manufacturing companies can overcome these barriers to attain competitive advantage in the global markets.

The exemplification of governance principles within state asset management laws and policies : the case of Indonesia

Efficient state asset management is crucial for governments as they facilitate the fulfillment of their public functions, which include the provision of essential services and other public administration support. In recent times economies internationally and particularly in South east Asia, have displayed increased recognition of the importance of efficiencies across state asset management law, policies and practice. This has been exemplified by a surge in notable instances of reform in state asset management. A prominent theme in this phenomenon is the consideration of governance principles within the re-conceptualization of state asset management law and related policy, with many countries recognizing variability in the quality of asset governance and opportunities for profit as being critical factors. This issue is very current in Indonesia where a major reform process in this area has been confirmed by the establishment of a new Directorate of State Asset Management. The incumbent Director-General of State Asset Management has confirmed a re-emphasis on adherence to governance principles within applicable state asset management law and policy reform. This paper reviews aspects of the challenge of reviewing and reforming Indonesian practice within state asset management law and policy specifically related to public housing, public buildings, parklands, and vacant land. A critical issue in beginning this review is how Indonesia currently conceptualizes the notion of asset governance and how this meaning is embodied in recent changes in law and policy and importantly in options for future change. This paper discusses the potential complexities uniquely Indonesian characteristics such as decentralisation and regional autonomy regime, political history, and bureaucratic culture

Sharing with Creative Commons : a business model for content creators

Creative Commons (CC) is often seen as a social movement, dismissed by critics as a tool for hobbyists or academics who do not sell their creations to make a living. However, this paper argues that the licensing of creative copyright works under a CC licence does not preclude commercial gain. If used wisely, CC licences can be a useful tool for creators in their quest for commercial success. In particular, this paper argues that the sharing of creative works online under a CC licence allows creators to circumvent traditional distribution channels dominated by content intermediaries, whilst maintaining a level of control over their copyright works (i.e. explicitly reserving some rights but not all rights). This will be illustrated by case studies on how CC is being used by content creators and intermediaries respectively, and how successful their respective methods are in harnessing this tool.

Clone detection in repositories of business process models

As organizations reach to higher levels of business process management maturity, they often find themselves maintaining repositories of hundreds or even thousands of process models, representing valuable knowledge about their operations. Over time, process model repositories tend to accumulate duplicate fragments (also called clones) as new process models are created or extended by copying and merging fragments from other models. This calls for methods to detect clones in process models, so that these clones can be refactored as separate subprocesses in order to improve maintainability. This paper presents an indexing structure to support the fast detection of clones in large process model repositories. The proposed index is based on a novel combination of a method for process model decomposition (specifically the Refined Process Structure Tree), with established graph canonization and string matching techniques. Experiments show that the algorithm scales to repositories with hundreds of models. The experimental results also show that a significant number of non-trivial clones can be found in process model repositories taken from industrial practice.

Automated error correction of business process models

As order dependencies between process tasks can get complex, it is easy to make mistakes in process model design, especially behavioral ones such as deadlocks. Notions such as soundness formalize behavioral errors and tools exist that can identify such errors. However these tools do not provide assistance with the correction of the process models. Error correction can be very challenging as the intentions of the process modeler are not known and there may be many ways in which an error can be corrected. We present a novel technique for automatic error correction in process models based on simulated annealing. Via this technique a number of process model alternatives are identified that resolve one or more errors in the original model. The technique is implemented and validated on a sample of industrial process models. The tests show that at least one sound solution can be found for each input model and that the response times are short.

Global Business Today 2nd edition

Global Business Today is focused on the fundamentals of international business. Not only does this text provide coverage of the strategic imperatives of operating IB out of a small, dependent economy but it also builds a thorough worldwide orientation. In this edition, international business Graduate Attributes have been integrated throughout and there is topical discussion of issues such as the Doha round of trade negotiation, climate change and the rise of China and India. The authors recognise that case studies reinforce relevance and have therefore included either entirely new or significantly revised cases in every chapter. With a concise treatment of the crucial elements of an IB course, Global Business Today is the ideal text for a first subject in international busines