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<article xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">
  <front>
    <journal-meta>
      <journal-title-group>
        <journal-title>October</journal-title>
      </journal-title-group>
    </journal-meta>
    <article-meta>
      <title-group>
        <article-title>Conceptualizing business process violations</article-title>
      </title-group>
      <contrib-group>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <string-name>Sebastian Dunzer</string-name>
          <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">1</xref>
        </contrib>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <string-name>Annina Liessmann</string-name>
          <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">1</xref>
        </contrib>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <string-name>Matthias Stierle</string-name>
          <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff0">0</xref>
        </contrib>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <string-name>Martin Matzner</string-name>
          <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">1</xref>
        </contrib>
        <aff id="aff0">
          <label>0</label>
          <institution>Datalane BV</institution>
          ,
          <addr-line>Hoornwerk 1, 5264 PL Vught</addr-line>
          ,
          <country country="NL">The Netherlands</country>
        </aff>
        <aff id="aff1">
          <label>1</label>
          <institution>Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg</institution>
          ,
          <addr-line>Fürther Str. 248, 90429 Nürnberg</addr-line>
          ,
          <country country="DE">Germany</country>
        </aff>
      </contrib-group>
      <pub-date>
        <year>2024</year>
      </pub-date>
      <volume>14</volume>
      <issue>2024</issue>
      <fpage>0000</fpage>
      <lpage>0001</lpage>
      <abstract>
        <p>Process analysts seek to gain insights into process execution to continuously improve their business processes. Business process deviation analysis can prove useful in identifying process improvements. However, diferentiating between relevant and irrelevant deviations poses challenges. This is due to commercial process mining software lfagging a high number of process instances as deviations from process definitions (e.g., process models). Against this background, we define and conceptualize business process violations that indicate undesired behavior. This paper defines business process violations based on regulatory business process compliance. Furthermore, this paper conveys a conceptual model connecting business process violations, the process definition they violate, and their organizational setting. We structure these components in ten dimensions of business process violations. The conceptual model and dimensions were developed and evaluated based on real-world examples provided by a German software vendor. Our conceptualization provides the vocabulary and raises awareness to discuss deviations' important aspects that delineate violations.</p>
      </abstract>
      <kwd-group>
        <kwd>eol&gt;business process deviations</kwd>
        <kwd>business process violation</kwd>
        <kwd>process analysis</kwd>
        <kwd>conformance</kwd>
        <kwd>compliance</kwd>
      </kwd-group>
    </article-meta>
  </front>
  <body>
    <sec id="sec-1">
      <title>1. Introduction</title>
      <p>
        Organizations define and improve business processes to satisfy their customers’ demands [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref1 ref2">1, 2</xref>
        ]. Business
processes can be defined formally—e.g., in process models [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref1">1</xref>
        ], business rules [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref3">3</xref>
        ]—and informally—e.g.,
in textual descriptions [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref4">4</xref>
        ]. However, employees deviate from business processes in practice [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref5 ref6">5, 6</xref>
        ].
Merit can be found in deviations in some cases [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref7">7, 8</xref>
        ]. Employees discover improved methods of
executing processes, or they react to a situation to achieve customer satisfaction [8, 9, 10]. However, if
executions deviate from vital process requirements, harmful consequences can arise, including penalties
and dissatisfied customers [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref6">6, 11</xref>
        ]. Such deviations violate requirements spanning wider than an
organization’s process definition. Process requirements stem from within (e.g., operative requirements)
and outside an organization (e.g., laws, regulations) [12, 13]. Organizations partly derive business
process definitions from such requirements. As a consequence, process requirements are included
implicitly in process definitions.
      </p>
      <p>
        Checking process instances for their conformance to process definitions is one of the three constitutive
types of process mining [14]. Surveys of process mining users and software providers identified
transparency-related issues as a main incentive for using process mining [15]. Business process
management (BPM) and process mining research has proposed an extensive arsenal of techniques, and
tools for detecting deviations [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref7">7, 16, 17</xref>
        ]. As conformance checking consultants, we believe that we as a
community can develop a more efective toolbox by sharpening our fundamental concepts. The core
problem with the status-quo is the techniques’ focus on accurately detecting deviations between process
data and models, whereas BPM practitioners are interested in problematic deviations [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref1 ref6">1, 6, 18</xref>
        ]. We coin
this type of deviation as violation. Conformance checking in companies frequently results in numerous
deviations, as Section 2 shows. This is attributed to conformance checking, which assumes that process
models encompass a complete business process. However, certain parts of processes may not be included
in the process models that are utilized. Process analysts are hardly supported in identifying violations
among deviations. Therefore, academia and practice need a conceptual foundation to efectively identify
violations. Accordingly, this paper proposes a conceptualization of business process violations (Section
4). We believe the demand for controlling process violations is a key practical driver for process analysis,
especially, conformance checking, and it is far-fetched to consider every deviation a violation.
      </p>
      <p>We conceptualize business process violations in this paper:
1. We extend the view on business process violations beyond process definitions towards their
requirements to distinguish undesired from undefined behavior (Section 2). Rather than deviating
from a process definition [19], a violation infringes a requirement.
2. Section 3 presents a concise overview of notions revolving around process deviations workarounds,
anomalies, and non-compliance.
3. We define violations along the dimensions: definition level, requirement, execution, context, time,
organization, dependency, restorability, awareness, and planned (Section 4).
4. We evaluate the definition and conceptual-model based on real-world examples provided by a</p>
      <p>German software vendor (Section 5).
5. We distinguish violations from terms used in related BPM-research streams (Section 6).</p>
      <p>Additionally, we contribute to practice. Process owners and analysts can use the conceptualization
to identify blind spots in their analyses, assess their capabilities regarding analysis, and find an entry
point for process improvements. To outline its relevance, a motivating example from a practitioner’s
viewpoint shows dificulties which process analysts face when they assess deviations.</p>
    </sec>
    <sec id="sec-2">
      <title>2. Motivating Example</title>
      <p>Process adherence is a topic that is naturally coming up in our discussions with industry about how to
create value from process data. However, the understanding of process adherence difers a lot across
diferent stakeholders and companies. Process adherence can be strictly conforming to a process model
or executing a sequence of activities, not necessarily explicit in the process model, to achieve a process
goal. For audits, compliance is the major focus to avoid fines and other liabilities.</p>
      <p>This becomes apparent in process analysis projects. Commercial process mining software detects
numerous deviations by comparing process definitions (i.e., process models or rules in natural language)
with event data. However, once process experts are confronted with these deviations, they express no
urgency to take actions regarding most deviations identified (e.g., “it should not be done like that, but it
is not really a problem”). For some cases, the process definitions need to be fine-tuned, (e.g., “this can
happen, but only in specific cases”). Defining all possible exceptions is a tedious, and to some extent,
impossible task.</p>
      <p>The following scenario illustrates this issue. Figure 1a shows a simplified BPMN model of a sales
process. This model is compared against an SAP data set using Celonis’s conformance checking software1.
Figure 1b contains a part of the results (top five deviations).</p>
      <p>The most common deviation in Figure 1b is the creation of a pro forma invoice. It is not represented
in the BPMN model, but occurs if a customer requests it. Although creating a pro forma invoice
leads to some efort, unwanted consequences do not arise. Another deviation is shown for creating a
delivery after creating the invoice. A reason could be that a second delivery was created because of
an incomplete first delivery. Likewise, customers may be invoiced before sending a delivery, either
intended as payment in advance, or unintended as accounting is not aware that the goods have not
been shipped. Consequently, it is dificult to assess if a deviation is a violation by looking at the BPMN
model.
X
Create
Sales Order
Create
Sales Order</p>
      <p>Item
X
Create
Delivery
Record
Goods Issue
Create
Invoice
Clear
Invoice
X</p>
      <p>Create
Quotation
Set Reason
for Rejection
(a) Exemplary business process model and notation
(BPMN) model for a sales process.
(b) Results for conformance check with SAP data
with BPMN model from Figure 1a.</p>
    </sec>
    <sec id="sec-3">
      <title>3. Background</title>
      <p>To establish a conceptual model for business process violations, literature on definitions and
classifications of deviations and its associated concepts serves as a foundation. Moreover, we consider
BPM-streams related to risk management, compliance, and non-compliance to constrict conceptualizing
violations.</p>
      <sec id="sec-3-1">
        <title>3.1. Deviations, Workarounds, and Anomalies</title>
        <p>Conceptualizing violations in the context of business processes requires examining related concepts,
such as deviations, workarounds, and anomalies. Therefore, we outline the definitions along with
characteristics proposed in previous research.</p>
        <p>
          Business process deviations are characterized as process behavior which difers from its process
definition [ 19], such as process models [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref7">7, 20</xref>
          ], business rules [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref3">3</xref>
          ], and other definitions [ 21]. Process
definitions tend to omit exceptions to keep process models concise [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref5">5</xref>
          ]. Hence, deviating behavior is
inevitable in real-world business processes because exceptions occur and workers depend on their
freedom to react situationally [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref6">6, 19</xref>
          ].
        </p>
        <p>Workarounds are related to deviations in BPM [22]. They are described as “[. . . ] deviations from
defined business processes that are carried out in the employees’ performances of routines in a work
system” [22, p. 1]. Misusing information technology (IT) systems against their designed purpose
constitutes the top-down perspective on workarounds. In contrast, the bottom-up perspective promotes
workarounds as a source of innovation. Like deviations, workarounds can be considered a positive and
negative phenomenon [23]. Workaround characterizations are composed of multi-perspective patterns
including swapped activities, violated responsibilities, and manipulated data [8].</p>
        <p>
          With the increasing adoption of process mining, the data-centric perspective on business processes
gained importance. Anomalies in event logs represent deviations in real-world process executions
from a data-centric perspective [24]. Research refers to anomalies if an observation of a process
execution deviates from the normal observation [24]. Normal observations fulfill requirements regarding
their frequency and compliance with a data generation process. Hence, anomalies can be noise (e.g.,
mistaken recording of an observation), data generation mistakes (e.g., wrong attribute column), and
misbehavior [24]. Two anomaly-classification approaches can be diferentiated—model-based and
data-based [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref7">7</xref>
          ]. From the model-based perspective, a formal definition of anomalies includes the fitness
between an appropriate process model and an event log [25]. The model-based perspective resembles
process deviations by definition. In contrast, clustering-based and data-based approaches determine
anomalies based on, for example, their likelihood [26]. Additionally, research yields patterns—e.g., skip,
insert, rework—to characterize control-flow anomalies [27].
        </p>
      </sec>
      <sec id="sec-3-2">
        <title>3.2. Compliance and Risk Management</title>
        <p>Violations constitute undesired behavior, possibly breaking requirements spanning wider than an
organization. Compliance and risk management in BPM are concerned with legal, regulatory and
operational non-compliant behavior. Therefore, this stream of research contributes to conceptualizing
violations by extending the view on risk mitigation and fraud prevention mechanisms.</p>
        <p>Business process violations are typically associated with business process compliance—i.e.,
noncompliant behavior [11, 28]. The term violation originates from regulatory non-compliance. Compliance
itself can be found in many facets, including legal compliance, regulatory compliance, and compliance
with internal guidelines [29]. BPM research enlightens three perspectives to ensuring compliance
in business processes: (1) design-time, (2) run-time and (3) auditing [30]. Additionally, management
frameworks guide maintaining compliance in organizations [30]. Non-compliant practices incorporate
several risks, including fraud and malicious damage [31]. Fraud can manifest in deviating and
noncompliant behavior referring to a defined process. To qualify as fraud, employees deliberately act in
a non-compliant manner intending to achieve personal or organizational benefits [ 32]. In the set of
fraudulent behavior, process-based fraud can be identified using deviation-detection mechanisms [ 33].
Fraud detection and classifications search for patterns in data comprising, for example, control-flow,
resources, time, and data [33].</p>
        <p>Many laws, regulations, and other potential sources of non-compliance are known when designing
business processes. Therefore, organizations implement mitigation strategies for violations to increase
their business processes’ resilience. Risk-aware business process models allow for counteracting
violating process instances [34]. Whenever non-compliant behavior occurs during process executions,
these models do not break. Instead, they mitigate emerging issues, or recover a compliant state [34].
This stream of literature indicates that non-compliant and harmful behavior can be planned for in
process definitions.</p>
      </sec>
    </sec>
    <sec id="sec-4">
      <title>4. Conceptualizing Business Process Violations</title>
      <p>Against this background, we conceptualize business process violations, inspired by the terminologies
revolving around deviations and compliance. Before we elaborate on the diferent dimensions and
characteristics of business process violations, we define business process violations and propose a
conceptual model.</p>
      <sec id="sec-4-1">
        <title>4.1. Defining Business Process Violations</title>
        <p>
          A violation is defined as “an action that breaks or acts against something, especially a law [. . . ]” according
to the Cambridge Dictionary [35]. This notion is akin to non-compliance in BPM [30]. To clarify,
violations can be defined as undesired actions, behavior, and events that disrupt a process requirement,
which can be part of a business process definition. Process definitions range from detailed procedural
process models (e.g., pharmaceutical quality assurance) to unstructured textual instructions [21, 36, 37].
Process requirements originate from diferent sources including laws, regulatory agencies, internal
guidelines. Organizations want to adhere to process requirements for diferent reasons [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref2">2</xref>
          ]; for example,
legal compliance [30], strategic alignment (e.g., cost leadership), governance (e.g., transparency), and
operations [38].
        </p>
        <p>To violate a process requirement, an agent (i.e., systems, workers, teams) performs prohibited behavior
according to a process requirement while executing the related business process. An agent can be</p>
        <sec id="sec-4-1-1">
          <title>Legal</title>
        </sec>
        <sec id="sec-4-1-2">
          <title>Regulatory</title>
        </sec>
        <sec id="sec-4-1-3">
          <title>Contracted</title>
        </sec>
        <sec id="sec-4-1-4">
          <title>Strategic</title>
          <p>alignment</p>
        </sec>
        <sec id="sec-4-1-5">
          <title>Governance</title>
        </sec>
        <sec id="sec-4-1-6">
          <title>Operations</title>
          <p>Requirement
Organizational setting</p>
          <p>Definition
− Execution
− Context
− Time
− Organizational</p>
          <p>Violation
− Dependency
− Restorability
− Awareness
− Planned
Level</p>
        </sec>
        <sec id="sec-4-1-7">
          <title>Process</title>
        </sec>
        <sec id="sec-4-1-8">
          <title>Case</title>
        </sec>
        <sec id="sec-4-1-9">
          <title>Activity</title>
          <p>aware or unaware of violating a process requirement [32, 33]. Consequently, a violation can be caused
deliberately and accidentally [39]. Agents can instigate countermeasures to recover a process execution
from a violation, whereby process definitions can provide mitigation strategies, or an agent works out
countermeasures ad hoc [34]. Depending on their severity, violations can interrupt business process
execution [40].</p>
          <p>Three components describe a violation: (1) its organizational setting, (2) its process definition, and (3)
its characteristics. Each of these components is characterized in diferent dimensions. Figure 2 depicts
the resulting conceptual model of business process violations. Ten dimensions delineate a violation
in total: The organizational setting of a violation comprises the process (1) requirement (e.g., legal
requirements), and the definition (2) level (i.e., business process, case, activity). The context within
which a violation occurs, both at the definition level and its requirement, can provide an indication of
its severity. Process definitions preset the boundaries that agents must remain within during process
execution. A process definition encompasses four dimensions to execute a business process: (3) it may
regulate the control-flow of process execution, (4) stipulate context factors of executions, (5) define
time-bound constraints, and (6) prescribe organizational duties and responsibilities. Four dimensions
characterize a specific violation: (7) its dependency on previous events, (8) its restorability, (9) its causing
agent’s awareness, and (10) if it is planned for.</p>
          <p>The relationships in the model arise from the nature of process requirements and definitions. Business
process execution must adhere to requirements that account for an organization. These requirements
can originate from within and outside an organization. They are embodied in a process definition
that afects diferent levels of business process execution, ranging from business process to activity
execution. Therefore, a violation afects the requirement and the definition level.</p>
        </sec>
      </sec>
      <sec id="sec-4-2">
        <title>4.2. Organizational Setting</title>
        <p>As depicted in the conceptual model (see Figure 2), a violation impacts the organizational setting
regarding the requirement and definition level. Both dimensions and their respective characteristics are
summarized in Table 1.</p>
        <p>Requirement. The requirement dimension is related to a process definition’s origin. Process
definitions can stem from various internal and external requirements an organization has to, should, or can
adhere to. A violation of a definition means in turn a violation of a requirement. This can be a legal,
regulatory or contractual obligation as well as an organization’s strategic alignment, governance, and
operations. A legal source implies following a binding set of rules and regulations, which are governed
by an authority [13]. An organization has to abide these rules and regulations in all its operations. For
example, the compliance with GDPR is a European regulation applying to all organizations that collect
personal data in the European Union (EU). Violating GDPR can result in substantial fines. Next to legal
sources, industry regulations (e.g., ISO) and standards can represent a set of requirements for process
definitions. A violation of industry standards can lead to a certification suspension or withdrawal.
An organization also has contractual obligations that it needs to fulfill, like service-level agreements.
Additionally, organizations set requirements themselves concerning strategic alignment, governance,
and operations. This entails requirements derived from a corporate strategy, internal guidelines, and
operational procedures. These types of requirements, including reaching objectives such as minimizing
costs, risk, and time or maximizing quality and flexibility, can be the source of a specification.
Definition level. Process definitions are designed based on process requirements and applicable to
diferent levels [24, 33]. These levels can be considered as diferent perspectives of a requirement. On
the process level, process definitions include process models and textual descriptions [ 41]. A violation
of a specification on process level could be a sequence not represented in the process model and a
sequence indicating an exception. Definitions on case level consider a subset of cases sharing specific
characteristics. A violation of case-level definitions can be, for example, infringing specific requirements
for a customer as part of the order-to-cash process. The last definition level is activity, including work
instructions. Violations on the activity level can be, for example, the wrong resource performing the
work, or the work itself being erroneous.</p>
      </sec>
      <sec id="sec-4-3">
        <title>4.3. Process Definition</title>
        <p>Next to the organizational setting, the process definition is broken down into four dimensions: execution,
context, time, organizational. An execution agent should follow these definitions. Table 2 specifies the</p>
        <p>An execution requires a specific preced- Mandatory sequence not followed
ing execution.</p>
        <p>An execution should (not) be parallelized. Sequential instead of parallel execution
An execution detours to a wrong path in Wrong decision leads to wrong sequence
a process.</p>
        <p>An execution performs additional, un- Unspecified loops
specified actions.</p>
        <p>A required execution of an entity is not Execution missing
performed at all.</p>
        <p>The work conducted within an activity Human mistake in execution
or case has errors.</p>
        <p>An execution leads to an undesired A supplier’s address is copied into the
change in context. delivery document instead of the buyer’s</p>
        <p>address.</p>
        <p>An undesired change in context leads to An incorrect delivery document results
an incorrect execution. in a delivery to a wrong address.</p>
        <p>An execution has to be completed in a Assembling a product takes longer than
specified period. specified.</p>
        <p>An execution has to pause for some time. After coating a product, the product</p>
        <p>needs to cure for two hours.</p>
        <p>An execution has to be completed at a A service request must be answered
specific time. within five business days.</p>
        <p>An execution has to be completed at a A delivery should take place at a
specispecific point in time. fied delivery date.</p>
        <p>An agent cannot perform the execution. An agent lacks the permission to place</p>
        <p>an order.</p>
        <p>An agent could perform the execution, Four-eyes principle performed by a
sinbut should not. gle agent.
dimensions and their characteristics with an example.</p>
        <p>Execution. The execution dimension comprises all characteristics of violations related to the sequence
of steps to implement the definition [ 27, 28]. First, the definition requires an execution sequence of
entities, that is, precedence. For example, a product needs to be packaged before it is sent to the
customer. Second, the indeterminate absence (or existence) of parallelism in an execution can violate a
definition. Although two entities should be performed in parallel, they are not, potentially increasing
execution time. Third, triggering a wrong path after evaluating a condition incorrectly is a detour
violation. Fourth, an entity might be repeated unnecessarily, or other unspecified entities are performed.
The insertion of such entities violates a definition. Fifth, an entity specified can be absent from an
execution (e.g., a missing activity). The last definition violation in the execution dimensions concerns
the specific steps within an entity. Errors and mistakes lead to wrong outcomes of an entity, such as
saving a document in a wrong location.</p>
        <p>Context. Besides the implementation of steps, a definition can include details on process, case, and
activity context [33]. Context refers to additional data that is required to execute a process. Wrong
context (input) can either lead to an incorrect execution or can be the result of an incorrect execution
(output). For example, while creating a delivery document, the addresses of the buyer and supplier are
mixed up and copied incorrectly, falsifying the context. The erroneous document as input of the next
activity results in a delivery to the wrong address. This falsifies the execution.</p>
        <p>Time. Another dimension of the process definition is time [8, 24, 33]. A time violation can occur in
terms of duration, deadline, point in time, and delay. A duration violation is committed once a specified
period has passed without completing the execution. On an activity level, this means that the work
instructions are not finished within a timeframe, for example, the assembly of a product. In contrast to
duration, a delay imposes a requirement on the minimum idle time. A freshly coated product might
need a certain time to cure. Deadline and point in time violations both relate to a date, which can
be specified dynamically during execution. While a deadline signifies the time an execution must be
completed at the latest, a point in time refers to a time-frame in which the execution must take place or
ifnish. For example, a service request should be answered within five business days is a dynamically
created deadline. However, the delivery of a product at a specified delivery date is a point in time.
Delivering too early or too late is both considered a violation of a point in time definition.
Organizational. Process definitions can include requirements for organizational aspects [33]. The
organizational dimension can be structured into three characteristics. A violation occurs if the executing
agent cannot execute the definition or if he can, but should not, execute the definition. In the former
case, wrong resource, the agent might not have the required permission, for example in an IT system.
In the latter case, the executing agent might have the required permissions; however, there are other
duty-specific requirements in the definition to be respected. For example, two diferent agents need to
be involved in the execution.</p>
      </sec>
      <sec id="sec-4-4">
        <title>4.4. Violation</title>
        <p>A violation can be described along the dimensions: dependency, restorability, awareness, and planned.
Table 3 summarizes the characteristics belonging to these dimensions and provides examples to explain
each characteristic.</p>
        <p>Dependency The dependency dimension relates to the procedural circumstances related to a violation.
Violations can be independent, dependent on another execution, or interdependent on executions outside
its organization. Independent violations arise when human errors are involved; for instance, mistyping
bank account details in a form. Whenever there is an error in how to perform an activity and the
required data is available, a violation occurs independently. Dependent violations occur when static
case conditions within an organization are triggered during the execution of a process. For example,
after a customer has placed an order, the customer should receive the delivery within the next three
business days, but the organization misses this date. Interdependent violations relate to executions
which are executed outside the organization. For instance, a customer sets a desired delivery date later
than at the order placement. Hence, it is not known before the customer triggered a change in the case
context. If the organization delivers earlier or later, a violation occurred interdependently.
Restorability. The second dimension related to business process violations is their restorability.
Violations can be recoverable, repairable, or irreparable. A recoverable violation can be neutralized by taking
appropriate countermeasures; for example, a cancelled duplicated order. In contrast, countermeasures
cannot mitigate the efects of an irreparable violation on a business process execution. For instance, a
worker sends sensitive customer data to a wrong recipient—i.e. a GDPR infringement. Once the data
is underway, the damage has occurred and cannot be fixed. In between irreparable and recoverable
violations, there are violations whose efects can be mitigated at a certain cost. A missing order of
supplies for a production process can still be placed. However, by that time, the production of a good
may be delayed, leading to contractual penalties, dissatisfied customers and production rescheduling.
Awareness. A violation’s awareness characteristic diferentiates between harmful intention and
accidental behavior resulting in violations [32]. If an executing agent is aware of violating a process
requirement and violates it deliberately, this can be an indicator for fraud. In such cases, execution
agents may or may not strive for personal or organizational benefits by violating a binding process
requirement. Unaware violations can occur because process definitions to follow might be unenforced,
unknown, or unclear to executing agents. In response, the agents might have established routines
ignoring the definition [9, 23].</p>
        <p>A violation occurs independently of any An employee enters incorrect bank
acother execution. count information in a form.</p>
        <p>A violation is linked to another execution An employee receives and enters
incorwithin the organization. rect bank account information of a
cus</p>
        <p>tomer from another department.</p>
        <p>A violation is linked to external interde- A customer changes payment details and
pendencies. the change is not considered in imminent</p>
        <p>direct debits.</p>
        <p>A violation’s efects can be undone by
instigating countermeasures.</p>
        <p>A violation’s efects can be mitigated by
instigating countermeasures.
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        <p>Independent
Dependent
Interdependent
Recoverable
Repairable
Aware
Unaware
Planned
Unplanned
An employee places a purchase order
with the wrong quantity of an item, but
can still change it by contacting the
supplier.</p>
        <p>A purchase order has not been placed in
time and can still be placed at the cost
of a delayed delivery to a customer,
including fines.</p>
        <p>An employee reveals customer data to a
third party.</p>
        <p>
          Planned. Lastly, violations can be planned for in process definitions to handle their potential
consequences [34]. Planned violations are exceptions from the desired behavior which are explicitly
incorporated in a process definition. If they occur, escalation or mitigation procedures are in place.
On the contrary, unplanned violations are not accounted for in a process definition. Such violations
represent deviations from a process model [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref7">7</xref>
          ].
        </p>
      </sec>
    </sec>
    <sec id="sec-5">
      <title>5. Evaluation</title>
      <p>After having outlined the definition, conceptual model, and characteristics of violations, we demonstrate
the suitability of this conceptualization based on real-world examples of violations and other types
of deviations. We evaluated the definition and characteristics of violations in collaboration with the
German software company MonCorp2. The company operates in the area of IT monitoring and employs
300 workers. MonCorp has a dedicated BPM department. One of their business process managers, who
held the position for five years, helped to develop and evaluate the violation definition and characteristics.
She provided 20 real-world process requirements, reported potential violations, and participated in
discussions. The provided process requirements and violations originate from diferent organizational
functions, including accounting, finance, IT, and sales. Following on from our motivating example
(cf. Section 2), we elaborate on three real-life requirements and violations regarding the order-to-cash
(O2C) process in accounting.
2The company’s name is altered due to confidentiality.</p>
      <p>MonCorp provided examples that deviate from process definitions, but do not constitute violations.
To obtain a tax exemption as a US-based customer for purchasing MonCorp’s services, an exemption
certificate must be available before issuing an invoice; otherwise the customer has to pay the taxes. In
the best-case scenario, the certificate is available before issuing an invoice to the customer. However, in
some cases, the certificate is unavailable at the time of the order. If the certificate is received later and
needs to be added to an invoice, MonCorp’s team reimburses the original invoice and creates another
invoice for the customer without taxes. While this procedure takes more time and infringes the process’s
definition, the company considers this a workaround rather than a violation. Customers may not have
the certificate available, but service delivery is required. In these cases, although not in the process
definition, this represents a desired behavior to still achieve customer satisfaction. Thus, it does not
fulfill the criteria to qualify as a violation. The second example originates from the legal environment.
If a country is internationally embargoed (e.g., by the European Union), no goods and services may be
delivered there and invoices may not be issued. However, when an aid organization operating in an
embargoed country requested one of MonCorp’s services, it had to be delivered and an invoice needed to
be created. The company considers this a deviation and perhaps a workaround, but not a violation. The
actions complied with the legal requirements, however, infringed the process definition since system
constraints were bypassed to allow for service delivery and invoice creation.</p>
      <p>The first violated O2C process requirement concerns charging value-added taxes on invoices. If a
European customer has provided their value-added tax (VAT) ID, it has to be added to the customer’s
profile. The automatic invoice creation without a VAT ID entry leads to wrongly created invoices,
rescinded transactions and a restart of the process. MonCorp considers forgetting to enter a VAT ID in
cases where the customer is European as a violation. This violation is characterized by the dimensions
definition level (case), requirement (legal), execution (absence), context (falsify context), dependency
(independent), restorability (repairable), awareness (unaware), and planned (planned).</p>
      <p>The second legal requirement regarding invoicing is that the delivery and invoice date match. A typical
violation provided by MonCorp is redating an invoice which deviates from a process-level definition. This
becomes problematic in audits and can lead to fines. This violation is characterized in the dimensions
definition level (process), requirement (legal), execution (erroneous), context (falsify context), dependency
(dependent), restorability (irreparable), awareness (aware), and planned (unplanned).</p>
      <p>Third, partners can achieve certain partner levels. Depending on the level, partners can redeem
discounts and are invited to MonCorp’s events and fares. The company provided an example of a
violation, where customers received multiple partner levels. As consequences, these customers were
invited to events where their partner level was insuficient, and they were granted additional discounts
resulting in high losses because of their added up partner level. This violation is characterized by the
following dimensions: definition level (case), requirement (operations), execution (insertion), context
(falsify execution), dependency (interdependent), restorability (repairable), awareness (unaware), and
planned (unplanned).</p>
      <p>As shown, the conceptual model and characteristics of violations help to classify violations. In
addition, the characterization allows for deriving countermeasures for certain violations. If a violation
occurs multiple times, MonCorp may reconfigure their systems based on the characterization. For
example, MonCorp could automatically check for duplicate entries in partner levels. Furthermore, the
business process manager stated that the conceptual model and characteristics raise the awareness of
those aspects that influence and delineate violations.</p>
    </sec>
    <sec id="sec-6">
      <title>6. Discussion</title>
      <p>Following our definition and characteristics of business process violations, the question, if they are
a foundational concept of BPM, remains open. After distinguishing violations conceptually from
deviations and other related concepts, we outline our contributions and future research opportunities.</p>
      <p>Workaround</p>
      <p>Fraud
Anomaly</p>
      <sec id="sec-6-1">
        <title>6.1. Distinguishing Violations</title>
        <p>
          Violations are closely related to the notions of deviations, workarounds, anomalies, and fraud.
Additionally, the term itself arises from non-compliance regarding regulatory compliance. Approaches to
determine deviations from a process definition can be characterized as model-based approaches [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref7">7</xref>
          ].
These approaches find deviations by comparing normative or descriptive behavior encoded in a process
definition with process executions [18]. In contrast to violations, deviations solely represent behavior
not accounted for in the process definition, without considering whether the behavior is desired or
undesired. Workarounds are a subset of deviations, carried out as an employee’s work routine [22] and
are not defined as part of the process. They can be considered negative or positive [ 9]. A workaround
can be a violation if it represents an undesired action or behavior infringing a process requirement.
However, a workaround can in turn also facilitate a process requirement (i.e., desired behavior).
        </p>
        <p>
          Approaches to determine anomalies, cluster-based approaches, assume a data-centric perspective by
detecting anomalies in process execution data [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref7">7</xref>
          ]. An anomaly fails to meet specific characteristics in
terms of frequency, or does not fit a probability distribution [ 24]. Even though the behavior is infrequent,
it might not necessarily be undesired or violating a process requirement.
        </p>
        <p>Violation and fraud both place emphasis on undesired behavior in process executions. Undesired
behavior can stem from violating laws, rules, regulations, and organizational policies [35, 42]. This
undesired behavior might not be explicitly reflected in process definitions. While fraud violates the
process definition, it can be characterized as a deliberate act intended to obtain a benefit [ 33]. Since
fraud always involves undesired behavior, all kinds of fraud can be considered a violation. On the
contrary, not all violations are frauds.</p>
        <p>The various relations between deviation, workaround, anomaly, fraud, and violation are depicted
in Figure 3. Based on this distinction, it becomes clear, that violations are not necessarily deviations,
workarounds, or anomalies. This should be considered when designing systems to check for violations.</p>
      </sec>
      <sec id="sec-6-2">
        <title>6.2. Contributions and Future Research</title>
        <p>We set out to investigate the diference between relevant and irrelevant deviations in process analysis
projects in practice. Commercial analysis methods reveal numerous deviations and aggravate finding
relevant deviations. Soon it became apparent, that deviating from foundational process requirements
derived from, for instance, operative or strategic objectives, determine a deviation’s relevance for further
examination. In business process compliance, non-compliant behavior is referred to as violations. We
argue for expanding violations beyond regulatory compliance, also taking requirements stemming from
operations, corporate strategy and governance into account. This notion allows for conceptualizing
what practice is searching for, when they analyze their processes using deviation detection methods
(e.g., conformance checking):
1. We define business process violations as undesired actions, behavior, or events infringing a
process requirement which may or may not be part of a process definition (e.g., process model).
2. We provide and evaluate a conceptual model linking the three components organizational setting,
process definitions, and violations to conceptualize the latter. We describe these components in
ten dimensions: definition level, requirement, execution, context, time, organization, dependency,
restorability, awareness, and planned.
3. We diferentiate violations from deviations, workarounds, anomalies, and fraud.</p>
        <p>Our conceptualization of violations opens up opportunities for future research. The conceptual model
and its dimensions call for further empirical validation. The model could further be refined and extended
based on resulting insights. An opportunity for future research arises from the link between process
requirements and process definitions. Another type of empirical research design could scrutinize to
what extent process definitions in practice include process requirements derived from diferent sources.
Design-time compliance research can provide initial reference points on quantifying this relationship
in field and case studies [ 30, 31]. Furthermore, to assist process analysts in determining the relevant
deviations, an algorithmic research setup could develop a violation relevance metric.</p>
      </sec>
    </sec>
    <sec id="sec-7">
      <title>7. Conclusion</title>
      <p>This paper originates in the diferent understanding of business process deviations in practice and
academia. Practitioners require insights into problematic process execution. Current commercial
methods, tools, and techniques, however, identify numerous and mostly irrelevant deviations.
Instead, practitioners strive to identify and eliminate problematic deviations, breaking operative or legal
requirements. In contrast, research defines deviations as behavior, which is not expressed within a
process definition. A multitude of techniques, methods, and algorithms are concerned with identifying
deviations. Such deviations can be very useful when organizations want to detail and refine their
process definitions. However, most deviation analysis projects focus on identifying potential candidates
for process improvements. A look into BPM research reveals an eclectic number of concepts related to
deviations—i.e. anomalies, workarounds, compliance, and risk. Consolidating these diferent streams
into business process violations resembles what organizations are searching for when they analyze
deviations using industry-standard conformance checking. Business process violations represent undesired
actions, behavior, or events that can be characterized in diferent dimensions. We pledge for process
analysis and mining that incorporates the connection between process definitions, their requirements
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