A Discussion and Test of a Communication Flow Optimization Approach for Business Process Redesign

A vital component of any business process redesign (BPR) project is the depiction and understanding of an organization's processes that are being targeted for redesign. The literature on BPR suggests that the vast majority of past BPR projects have placed emphasis on the use of business process representations depicting the chronological flow of activities of processes known as workflow representations. This study suggests that a focus on the communication aspects of processes is more advisable. A controlled experiment with 210 student subjects was used to test a business process communication flow optimization model. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling techniques. Overall, the results provide strong support for the notion that a focus on communications flow representations predicts BPR success. This study calls for a reorientation from the widespread BPR practice of placing emphasis on workflow representations of processes toward an emphasis on communication flow representations. Copyright (C) 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.