Conceptualizing Business Process Management Capabilities in Digitalization Contexts

Abstract

In this article we address a gap in the business process management literature (BPM) on the capabilities needed for interacting with actors outside of the organization as drivers for process innovation. Several authors in the BPM field point to an ambidextrous approach in managing innovations that imply both revolutionary and evolutionary process changes. Others study BPM in the context of digitalization and conclude that the view of necessary capabilities for managing BPM should be updated with capabilities that fit the needs of digitalization. We base our conceptualization on these premises and analyze case examples from 29 in-depth interviews in four business clusters supported by secondary data from project documents and a survey. From this, we propose extensions to process management capabilities to address the need for managing co-creation with external actors as input to digital innovations. In our response to closing the competence gap in the BPM literature we contribute to further theorizing by conceptualizing new BPM activities related to business network co-creation as input to process innovations.