=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-3758/paper-04
|storemode=property
|title=Towards Sustainable BPM Excellence: A Maturity Model Grounded in Paradox Theory
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3758/paper-04.pdf
|volume=Vol-3758
|authors=Ika Nurkasanah
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/bpm/Nurkasanah24
}}
==Towards Sustainable BPM Excellence: A Maturity Model Grounded in Paradox Theory==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3758/paper-04.pdf
Towards Sustainable BPM Excellence: A Maturity Model Grounded
in Paradox Theory
Ika Nurkasanah1
1Ghent University, Campus Tweekerken Tweekerkenstraat 2, 9000, Ghent, Belgium
Abstract
Global institution’s and customers’ demand for sustainable products put pressure on organizations to integrate
sustainability into their business strategies. Current organizational priorities on reporting the ratings over im-
proving their business processes towards sustainability have called interest among Business Process Management (BPM)
researchers. From the BPM perspective, guidance on gradual improvements is offered in the form of maturity
models (MMs). Meanwhile, current models have limitations: corporate sustainability models lack quantification
and validation, BPM models do not address specific sustainability capabilities, and green business process models fail
to integrate economic and social aspects. Moreover, formulating multiple objectives during business initiatives
often creates stakeholder tensions, necessitating the adoption of paradox theory to help organizations manage
the issues. Therefore, this PhD research aims to bridge these gaps by developing a maturity model through the lenses
of paradox theory and configurational theory to achieve sustainable BPM excellence and a balance of sustainable
pillars. The research employs a mixed-method approach, including systematic literature reviews, an expert panel,
multiple case studies, a survey, and design science research to ensure robust and validated sustainable BPM MMs.
Theoretical contributions will enhance current BPM knowledge within a sustainable context, while practitioners will
gain a validated tool for assessing their current state and achieving a desired maturity level of Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs) in a balanced manner. The intermediate findings of the first-year project reveal three
categories of balancing efforts toward sustainable BPM: strategic, managerial, and technical approaches.
Keywords
Business Process Management, sustainability, sustainable BPM, paradox theory, tensions management
1. Introduction
International institutions have escalated pressure on organizations to commit to global sustainability
initiatives, prompting companies to integrate sustainability objectives into their business strategy. For
example, the United Nations Development Program’s long-term strategy targets net zero emissions by
2050[1], [2] and the European Commission, which created a Green Deal policy climate-neutral to reduce costs,
protect prosperity, and save the planet by 2050 [3]. As customers are increasingly concerned about
sustainability [4]; thus, to remain competitive and increase profits, the organization must innovate its
business process by also considering social and environmental impacts. This emerging focus has also
captured the attention of Business Process Management (BPM) researchers. Consequently, numerous
studies have expanded the traditional performance criteria of the "devil’s quadrangle"—comprising
process quality, cost, time, and flexibility—to include sustainability as a critical process performance
metric. Practically, organizations are more focused on reporting the final ratings of sustainability [5], [6],
[7]; meanwhile, limited studies provide practical guidelines for how the organization achieves this rating. On
the other hand, BPM has the potential to achieve an organization’s sustainable performance effectively
through business automation, such as the use of process mining that enables data-driven decision
support and process enhancements to achieve sustainability in the business process[8]. The integration
of BPM with Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), an approach for mapping and evaluating the interlinkages
between business processes and environmental impacts, makes another key role of BPM for sustainability
ambitions [9]. However, the current study of BPM in correlation with sustainability
Proceedings of the Best BPM Dissertation Award, Doctoral Consortium, and Demonstrations & Resources Forum co-located with 22nd
International Conference on Business Process Management (BPM 2024), Krakow, Poland, September 1st to 6th, 2024
Ika.Nurkasanah@Ugent.be (I. Nurkasanah)
0000-0003-3199-6747 (I. Nurkasanah)
©2024 Copyright for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
CEUR
ceur-ws.org
Workshop ISSN 1613-0073
Proceedings
mainly emphasizes ecological aspects, lacking the integration with other pillars (i.e., economic and
social sustainability), including the BPM evolution to Green BPM[10], [11]. If organizations are eager to
transform their business process to achieve sustainability goals, they need to know how they should
improve it gradually. From the BPM perspective, organizations need maturity models (MMs) as tools for
identifying what capabilities are required, assessing their current capabilities, and designing actionable
efforts to achieve the desired levels of sustainability [12]. Meanwhile, the capabilities area represents
components of the guidelines related to strategy, governance, methods, IT, people, and culture that
organizations must fulfill and lead to successful business process performance. However, the existing
MMs framework still focuses on conventional BPM [13], [14], [15], while other frameworks started to
address the sustainability perspective but predominantly emphasize environmental aspects, such as in
the green BPM maturity model [16]. Therefore, there is a need to extend the conventional and green
BPM maturity models and their capability frameworks to encompass the more holistic scope of
sustainability pillars. Achieving sustainability objectives in practice involves navigating conflicted demands
or tensions from various internal and external stakeholders. These tensions typically pertain to two key
issues: (1) the organization’s decision to balance sustainability pillars, whether through integration or
prioritization of economic, ecological, and social dimensions, or (2) the organization’s approach to
addressing sustainability paradoxes (i.e., organizing, learning, belonging, and performance tensions). The
paradox theory posits that organizations are filled with persistent, contradictory yet interdependent
demands[17], while also acknowledging the four tensions categories that underlie opposing goals:
belonging, learning, organizing, and performing [18]. Further research [19] specifically discusses conflicted
objectives representing paradoxes in BPM, such as 1) between increased complex- ity in analysis and
lifecycle agility; 2) process models complexity and cost efficiency; 3) demand for real-time decision and
scattered data across different information systems and organizations units; 4) safety-critical or inaccurate
properties for finetune process execution (many data analysis are proba- bilistic but untraceable); 5)
autonomous actions by IT artifacts and increased resource consumption to steer the process; 6)
standardized business process with reduced cost and individualized products. Unfortunately, those
studies overlooked detailed guidelines on how to manage the BPM paradoxes and how to incorporate
sustainability dimensions in a balanced way. Therefore, the incorporation of sustainability tension
management and paradox theory is essential when formulating capability areas and developing metrics for
defining sustainable BPM maturity. This PhD research aims to address the gaps mentioned above by
developing maturity models under the lens of BPM and paradox theory toward sustainable BPM
excellence, including balancing advice. Hence, this study seeks to answer the following questions: How
can MM be developed to realize sustainable BPM while balancing three sustainability pillars (economy,
ecology, and social)? The theoretical contribution of my research will enrich prescriptive knowledge
about sustainable BPM, and while practitioners will benefit from validated tool to assess their current
sustainable BPM state and receive actionable recommendations for achieving their Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs) in a balanced manner.
2. Research Design
This doctoral research will be divided into three projects (as seen in Figure 1), each focusing on two
things: 1) quantification or measurement of sustainable BPM maturity and 2) balancing approach of
sustainability pillars within business process initiatives.
2.1. Project 1 (in progress) – Theorizing Capability Framework and Balancing Acts of Sustainable
BPM
This first project’s objective is theorizing about the sustainable BPM capability areas, the corresponding
approaches for balancing the different sustainability pillars, and the tensions management that emerge as
an impact, thereby elucidating the interplay of multidisciplinary knowledge (BPM, Sustainability, and
Paradox Theory) to achieve business sustainability goals. A systematic literature review (SLR) [20], will
emerge as an appropriate method for addressing the following research questions: RQ 1.1.
Figure 1. Research Roadmap
How can conventional and green BPM capability areas be extended to sustainable BPM? and RQ
1.2. What approaches can organizations follow to balance the sustainability pillars (i.e., economic,
ecological, and social) and manage the related tensions in their business process initiatives? In response to RQ
1.2., literature will be searched by using specific keywords of (“Balancing” OR "Balance" OR "Paradox”
OR “Trade-Off” OR "tension") AND (“Sustainability" OR "Sustainable") AND "Business Process". The
initial pool of 483 articles with a final sample of 47 articles was sourced from various academic databases
(ScienceDirect, Web of Science, IEEE, AIS, Scopus). Additionally, another search will be performed to answer
RQ 1.1., following specific keywords of (“Capability Area*” OR “Capability”) AND (*Sustainability*” OR
“Sustainable”) AND (“Business Process" OR “Business Process Management” OR “BPM”). This project is
expected to result in a capability framework for sustainable BPM. To validate the robustness of this
framework, one round of expert panel discussions will be conducted, employing a mixed-method
approach that involves both online and offiine interviews with 10 academia and 10 practitioners in BPM
and sustainability fields. Another outcome of the first project is to provide an overview of balancing
approaches for managing tensions that arise in the pursuit of sustainability goals within business process
initiatives. Additionally, the project will suggest future research agendas based on a comprehensive review
of current literature.
2.2. Project 2 – Sustainable BPM Theory to Practice
The second project will mainly focus on leveraging the theory from Project 1 into the companies’ real
practice by identifying sustainable BPM maturity levels and exploring best practices for balancing the
different sustainability pillars in business process initiatives. Therefore, case study research will be
adopted with consideration of its advantages in investigating the contemporary phenomenon [21], [22], in
this case, a sustainable BPM transformation journey in a natural setting over a period of time. Case studies
will answer the two research questions: RQ 2.1. What are the important milestones and critical success
factors for a successful sustainable BPM implementation? and RQ 2.2. How do organizations choose to
balance approaches in their business process initiatives? Multiple case studies will be
Figure 2. Research Roadmap
performed on four companies with the following criteria: 1) high environmental and social risks (e.g.,
manufacturing, services, energy, and mining), especially those that have received sustainability awards (e.g.
Awards for Belgian Sustainability Report, Australian Reporting Awards. and Asia Sustainability Reporting
Awards); 2) have successfully implemented BPM, 3) in order to have comparison and to form generalization,
two of those companies will be selected from those who implemented trade-off strategy (achieving success
in one sustainability pillar but sacrificing others) and two other companies that integrate all pillars in a
more balanced. In order to achieve validity and reliability of MM generalization, the multiple case studies
will be strengthened with a survey of 300 various companies in different business sectors and
geographical locations. Ultimately, this project will extend conventional BPM maturity levels into
sustainable variants, leading to practical insight into best practices for achieving SDGs in business process
initiatives in a balanced way. The survey results in this project will also be analyzed further for
clustering the organizations based on their archetypes, thereby leveraging a configuration taxonomy and
expanding the conventional business process orientation paradigm [22] to encompass sustainability
considerations.
2.3. Project 3 – Prescriptive Tool’s Development and Testing
This final project will be dedicated to build and test a prescriptive tool for assessing an organization’s
current state and advising on desired and balanced state of sustainable BPM. A design science research
[23] will be performed for developing, applying, and analyzing an artefact, addressing two research
questions: RQ 3.1. How can organizations comprehensively measure their current state and achieve a
desired state in sustainable BPM? What are the difficulties of assessing the maturity level of sustainability
within BPM? and RQ 3.2. How are the balancing approaches of sustainable BPM interconnected to the
sustainable BPM maturity levels? The problems (1) are defined in section 1. Research Problems and State of the
Art. Then, in the DSR second phase, existing MMs such as corporate sustainability, conventional BPM,
green BPM, and digital sustainability will be compared (2) to find their advantages, shortcomings, and
limitations to motivate improvements towards sustainable BPM MMs. When determining strategy (3),
depending on the second phase result, a strategy between completely designing a new model or
combining the existing model into a new one will be chosen. The maturity levels and configuration
taxonomy from Project 2 will serve as the foundation for developing MM iteratively (4). This phase
involves in-depth case studies on 10 companies across each maturity level to test the comprehensiveness and
consistency of the maturity levels and capability areas. Subsequent validity tests will evaluate the
configuration taxonomy’s effectiveness to suggest pathways to achieve a desired sustainable BPM
maturity level, including balancing advice. The validated maturity model is then transferred (5) through
academic publications and web-based tool to ensure the visibility of its contributions theoretically and
practically. The web-based tool will be evaluated by verification (7) testing to ensure zero error codes and
will be validated (7) through workshops involving 10 different companies to test its functionality in
assessing the current maturity state, identifying targeted levels, and providing balanced effort
recommendations for achieving those targets. Several level definitions or capabilities areas are possible to
reject (8) as a result of the evaluation.
2.4. Intermediate Results
As my PhD thesis is currently in its first year, this section will present the intermediate results for the
first project. The final sample was analyzed and divided into four categories of efforts to balance the
sustainability dimensions (TBL) and rising tensions. First, the Strategic Approach represents how
companies incorporate sustainability pillars as additional perspectives in an organization’s long-term
planning and strategic goals, translated into a sustainable balanced scorecard (SBSC), and then detailing the
perspectives into metrics for measuring the achievement. Sustainability Balanced Scorecard (SBSC), extends the
traditional balanced scorecard framework which typically only covers finance, internal processes,
customer, and learning/growth perspectives. The majority of studies fall under the Managerial Approach, in
which suggesting managerial directions for successfully aligning sustainability and current business strategic
goals, executing the strategy, monitoring and reporting the goals achievement. Meanwhile, the third
category, Technical Approach, employing various technical approaches to deal with sustainability
tension within organizational business processes or to optimize sustainability performance defined in
SBSC, such as Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), artificial intelligence (AI), modelling and simulation,
game theory, etc. Several conflicts or tensions within the business process appear in the literature, for
example conflicted goals between reducing logistic costs (warehousing and transportation) and maintaining
customer satisfaction within the order-to-cash process [24]. To handle these tensions among sustainable
objectives and pillars, there are several strategic schemes that are implemented: 1) win-win - prioritizing
economic sustainability overs other pillars [25], 2) win-lose - gain benefit in one pillar, but sacrificing other
pillars [26], 3) integrative – balancing the pillars from a holistic view by reducing excess weight for
economic sustainability or does not prioritizing any of the three dimensions [27], and 4) paradox - urges
decision-makers to confront accepted tensions, bringing in the contrast TBL together [28]. Considering new
capability areas of managing these tensions under paradox theory are potential to consider in defining
the configuration of a sustainable BPM maturity model, the next step of the research will focus on
defining and validating those areas.
3. Conclusion and Future Steps
Overall, this PhD project will be completed through three projects, in which each project will merely
focus on the measurement of MMs and balancing strategy of sustainability pillars, including the efforts to
manage corresponding tensions within the business process initiatives. In this first year of the project timeline,
intermediate results have been derived by conducting SLR, revealing that three categories of
approaches (i.e., strategic, managerial, and technical) have been performed by the organization to
balance the sustainability pillars. Those approaches are complemented with four scheme categories to
manage the rising tensions during goal setting, i.e., win-lose, trade-offs, integrative, and paradoxes.
However, most literature discusses those approaches and schemes in individual processes, then required to be
linked with the context of business process management. In the second year, the project will establish
a configuration taxonomy to determine maturity levels. In the third and fourth years, the project will
develop and test prescriptive tool to help organizations assess maturity levels and guide their
progression towards sustainable BPM, supplemented by comprehensive recommendations to balance
sustainability pillars and address tensions under paradox theory.
Acknowledgments
This PhD project is conducted under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Amy Van Looy at Ghent University. We
gratefully acknowledge the research’s financial support provided by the Indonesia Endowment Fund for
Education (LPDP - Lembaga Pengelola Dana Pendidikan), which has been instrumental in making this
research possible.
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