Investigating reengineering teams in the context of business process change

Abstract

This research is concerned with investigating reengineering teams in the context of business process change, or more widely known, business process reengineering (BPR). Business Process Change, on the one hand, is still considered as being an approach that is required in recent times. Reengineering teams (teams that are involved with the planning, analysis and design of the approach) on the other hand, have been viewed to be essential for the development and implementation of BPR. Bearing these points in mind, it was discovered that although the reengineering teams area warrants attention, there has been little attention paid to it.

In the reengineering area, specifically, this research aims to address two main issues: first, the role of reengineering teams in business process change and second, the human and organisational aspects that surround the teams. For this, the research applied several steps and they are described in the following paragraphs.

To discover the role of the reengineering teams in the context of business process change, it was initially assumed that the foundations of the BPR lie in organisational change. Using this assumption, it became simpler and clearer to determine the exact role of teams. With regards to the human and organisational aspects, a strategy unique to the topic was adopted. At the outset, some human and organisational aspects that are more commonly found in the organisational behaviour and psychology areas were revealed and research with regards to these particular aspects was described. Whilst that was the theoretical side of the research, the research then had to determine whether the deductions formed from the theoretical side were evident in practice. For the empirical results, the research used a combination of approaches in order to obtain the desired results. A qualitative approach that has its foundations in Interpretivism was the methodology used in the research. The ontology assumed then that subjective meanings could be assumed to reconstruct reality. Evidence from practice was obtained using initially, two pilot studies. Further, a multiple case study strategy and the research techniques of mainly, interviews and referring to archival documents were utilised.

Once the data was analysed, a theory that could be used for future research in the reengineering teams area was developed. This was arrived at using a combination of certain grounded theory techniques, particularly, the forming of categories and coding. The findings suggested that reengineering teams are imperative for BPR and that some of the selected human and organisational aspects are evident in the newly formed theory.