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Organizational processes vary. Practitioners have developed simple frameworks to differentiate them. Surprisingly, the academic literature on process management does not-it typically strives for one method to manage all processes. We draw on organizational information-processing theory to systematically develop a new, theoretically motivated classification model for organizational processes. We validate this model using survey data from 141 process practitioners of a global corporation. We derive three distinct types of processes and demonstrate that an understanding of process variety based on process dimensions can differentiate processes better than existing frameworks used in practice. Our findings can enable process managers to make informed decisions and serve as a basis for contingent process management.

Purpose - The business process modeling notation (BPMN) is an increasingly important standard for process modeling and has enjoyed high levels of attention in business practice. In this paper, experiences are shared from several research projects investigating the uptake and user acceptance of BPMN by analysts world-wide. This personal viewpoint aims to offer a number of implications for business process management (BPM) practice and seeks to stimulate and guide further research and other developments in this area.Design methodology approach - This paper offers a personal viewpoint based on the experiences and findings gathered from survey research and interviews on the use of BPMN. While details on research execution are mostly omitted, references are provided to guide the interested reader to the methodology used in the original studies.Findings - First, statistics are provided on the usage of BPMN by process modelers world-wide. Amongst others, it is shown that the high interest in BPMN has created a massive demand for BPM education and training. Second, a number of usage problems related to the practice of process modeling with BPMN are described and suggestions are provided as to how organizations have developed workarounds for these problems. Third, it is suggested that BPMN is over-engineered and more insights into practical usage are needed for future development.Research limitations implications - While being based on empirical research, a limitation of this paper is the lack of detail about research execution; however, references are provided. The paper offers a personal viewpoint on the state of current and future practice of process modeling and discusses a range of implications for future research.Practical implications - The paper describes a number of commonly encountered pitfalls when modeling processes with BPMN. It also provides directions for the organizational implementation and future development of process modeling as well as implications for various BPMN stakeholders.Originality value - This viewpoint is derived from some of very few empirical studies on the usage of BPMN specifically and BPM standards generally.

In this commentary I reflect on the twenty five-year history of the Communications of the Association for Information Systems (CAIS) to ask a question I do not intend to resolve: should CAIS as a publishing institution change—more and faster—given the transformations to IS research and practice brought on by digitalization and artificial intelligence, or should it remain a stable and traditional institution that preserves its tradition and serves as an anchor to the community of information systems scholars? I present arguments for the need to accelerate change as well as arguments for the need to maintain stability. Instead of offering a verdict, I then propose a middle path: keep the ends constant—CAIS’ ideals of community stewardship, pluralism of forms, and the free flow of ideas—while modernizing the means of implementing them. My hope with this reflection is to ignite a broader conversation about CAIS as a foundational pillar for our community and the role of publishing institutions in the future of our community.

At the 2019 International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS), the College of Senior Scholars appointed a committee to investigate diversity in the editorial boards of their Basket of Eight journals. Editorial board diversity signals that a journal welcomes and includes all authors. The committee compared the gender, regional and ethnic diversity of the editorial boards to that of AIS members in the Academic membership category. This comparison showed that the editorial boards overall had fewer female members, more members from Region 1, and fewer from Region 3 than one would reasonably expect. Furthermore, there were more editorial board members of Indian ancestry than one would expect, while several other ethnicities appeared on editorial boards in smaller numbers than one would expect, in comparison to AIS Academic members. The individual journals also differed a great deal among themselves with respect to these diversity criteria. Regrettably, every journal fell below what one would reasonably expect with respect to either gender, regional, or ethnic diversity. Based on these findings, we make recommendations for the College of Senior Scholars, editors in chief of the Basket of Eight journals, the AIS Council, and individuals who lead other organizations of IS scholars.

This paper explores how a world-wide operating software solutions provider implemented environmentally sustainable business practices in response to emerging environmental concerns. Through an interpretive case study, we develop a theoretical framework that identifies four important functional affordances originating in information systems, which are required in environmental sustainability transformations as they create an actionable context in which (1) organizations can engage in a sensemaking process related to understanding emerging environmental requirements, and (2) individuals can implement environmentally sustainable work practices. Through our work, we provide several contributions, including a better understanding of IS-enabled organizational change and the types of functional affordances of information systems that are required in sustainability transformations. We describe implications relating to (1) how information systems can contribute to the creation of environmentally sustainable organizations, (2) the design of information systems to create required functional affordances, (3) the management of sustainability transformations, and (4) the further development of the concept of functional affordances in IS research.

In this commentary I reflect on the twenty five-year history of the Communications of the Association for Information Systems (CAIS) to ask a question I do not intend to resolve: should CAIS as a publishing institution change—more and faster—given the transformations to IS research and practice brought on by digitalization and artificial intelligence, or should it remain a stable and traditional institution that preserves its tradition and serves as an anchor to the community of information systems scholars? I present arguments for the need to accelerate change as well as arguments for the need to maintain stability. Instead of offering a verdict, I then propose a middle path: keep the ends constant—CAIS’ ideals of community stewardship, pluralism of forms, and the free flow of ideas—while modernizing the means of implementing them. My hope with this reflection is to ignite a broader conversation about CAIS as a foundational pillar for our community and the role of publishing institutions in the future of our community.

Process modeling grammars are used by analysts to describe information systems domains in terms of the business operations an organization is conducting. While prior research has examined the factors that lead to continued usage behavior, little knowledge has been established as to what extent characteristics of the users of process modeling grammars inform usage behavior. In this study, a theoretical model is advanced that incorporates determinants of continued usage behavior as well as key antecedent individual difference factors of the grammar users, such as modeling experience, modeling background and perceived grammar familiarity. Findings from a global survey of 529 grammar users support the hypothesized relationships of the model. The study offers three central contributions. First, it provides a validated theoretical model of post-adoptive modeling grammar usage intentions. Second, it discusses the effects of individual difference factors of grammar users in the context of modeling grammar usage. Third, it provides implications for research and practice.

Process modeling grammars are used to create scripts of a business domain that a process-aware information system is intended to support. A key grammatical construct of such grammars is known as a Gateway. A Gateway construct is used to describe scenarios in which the workflow of a process diverges or converges according to relevant conditions. Gateway constructs have been subjected to much academic discussion about their meaning, role and usefulness, and have been linked to both process-modeling errors and process-model understandability. This paper examines perceptual discriminability effects of Gateway constructs on an individual's abilities to interpret process models. We compare two ways of expressing two convergence and divergence patterns - Parallel Split and Simple Merge - implemented in a process modeling grammar. On the basis of an experiment with 98 students, we provide empirical evidence that Gateway constructs aid the interpretation of process models due to a perceptual discriminability effect, especially when models are complex. We discuss the emerging implications for research and practice, in terms of revisions to grammar specifications, guideline development and design choices in process modeling.

The objective of this research perspectives article is to promote policy change among journals, scholars, and students with a vested interest in hypothetico-deductive information systems (IS) research. We are concerned about the design, analysis, reporting, and reviewing of quantitative IS studies that draw on null hypothesis significance testing (NHST). We observe that although debates about misinterpretations, abuse, and issues with NHST have persisted for about half a century, they remain largely absent in IS. We find this to be an untenable position for a discipline with a proud quantitative tradition. We discuss traditional and emergent threats associated with the application of NHST and examine how they manifest in recent IS scholarship. To encourage the development of new standards for NHST in hypothetico-deductive IS research, we develop a balanced account of possible actions that are implementable in the short-term or long-term and that incentivize or penalize specific practices. To promote an immediate push for change, we also develop two sets of guidelines that IS scholars can adopt immediately.

Enterprise Architecture Management (EAM) is discussed in academia and industry as a vehicle to guide IT implementations, alignment, compliance assessment, or technology management. Still, a lack of knowledge prevails about how EAM can be successfully used, and how positive impact can be realized from EAM. To determine these factors, we identify EAM success factors and measures through literature reviews and exploratory interviews and propose a theoretical model that explains key factors and measures of EAM success. We test our model with data collected from a cross-sectional survey of 133 EAM practitioners. The results confirm the existence of an impact of four distinct EAM success factors, 'EAM product quality', 'EAM infrastructure quality', 'EAM service delivery quality', and 'EAM organizational anchoring', and two important EAM success measures, 'intentions to use EAM' and 'Organizational and Project Benefits' in a confirmatory analysis of the model. We found the construct 'EAM organizational anchoring' to be a core focal concept that mediated the effect of success factors such as 'EAM infrastructure quality' and 'EAM service quality' on the success measures. We also found that 'EAM satisfaction' was irrelevant to determining or measuring success. We discuss implications for theory and EAM practice.