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Success factors in process

performance management

Success factors
in PPM

Josef Blasini and Susanne Leist

Department of Management Information Systems,
University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany

477

Received 20 June 2012

Revised 12 September 2012
Purpose Although process performance management (PPM), doubtlessly contributes to the Accepted 18 October 2012

Abstract

increase of business performance, it has been given only little attention to date. The purpose of this
paper is to provide a better understanding of what constitutes successful PPM and to identify critical
success factors in PPM.
Design/methodology/approach The authors conducted two complementary literature reviews
a representative literature review to get an overview of possible success factors, and an extended
literature review to identify detailed success factor items. To increase the reliability of the success
factors, a multiple case-study was additionally conducted.
Findings In the first literature review the representative one 11 success factors of PPM were
identified, to which several detailed PPM success factor items could be identified in the extended
literature review. Obviously, the success factor information quality is much more mentioned in
literature than factors regarding process quality or system quality.
Research limitations/implications Since there are no standardized terms regarding PPM, it is
challenging to include all important papers into the literature review. The next steps to develop a PPM
success model are to conceptualize a structural equation model and to conduct a worldwide
online-survey.
Practical implications The findings of this research serve as a basis for a PPM success model,
which enables practitioners to focus on what is really important for successful PPM.
Originality/value The application of a multi-methodological research approach resulted in
success factors whose importance was evaluated by their frequency of occurrence in literature, as well
as by experts in real-life enterprises.
Keywords Process performance management, Performance management, Performance measurement,
Critical success factors
Paper type Literature review

1. Introduction
Companies have to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of their business. They are
confronted with the need to reduce costs by improving the performance of their business.
A company-wide performance management is therefore a necessity to preserve a
competitive market position. Process performance management (PPM) is seen as an
essential part of performance management which is focused on a companys processes
and comprises the planning, monitoring, and control of process performance (e.g. output,
processing time, cases of complaints).
In PPM, numerous methods and concepts were developed by researchers and
practitioners helping to manage processes by deriving process performance indicators,
measures, and figures from the companys vision, its strategy and process objectives
(Heckl and Moormann, 2010). Process performance management systems (PPMS)
do not only help to monitor and control the relevant indicators, measures, and figures,
but also help to generate different kinds of reports and to support the analyses

Business Process Management

Journal
Vol. 19 No. 3, 2013
pp. 477-495
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1463-7154
DOI 10.1108/14637151311319914

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of the figures. PPMS enable companies to automatically record, control, monitor, and
analyze a multiplicity of figures. Sometimes they are used as the underlying theoretical
concept of PPM, too.
Despite the increased need for the measurement and the coherent management of
processes it is still not clear which factors do influence a successful development,
implementation, and application of PPM in practice. People who are responsible for
measuring and controlling process performance in enterprises and who Martin
characterizes as performance technologists (Martin, 2008) are unsure about what is
really relevant to assure PPM success. Whether established PPM methods or
self-developed and company-specific concepts or the technical support of PPM are the
key factors of the success is still an open question.
The problem in the research field of PPM is the still missing knowledge as to which
success factors for the development, implementation, and application of PPM actually
exist. Therefore, the following central research question is addressed:
RQ. Which success factors contribute to the success of PPM?
The purpose of this paper is to provide a better understanding of what constitutes PPM
success. Hence, we want to identify critical success factors in PPM to develop a PPM
success model in future research.
Our method is based on the multi-method approach by Gable (1994). We discuss the
first five stages of this research method and present the state of the literature by means
of a literature review, which is additionally supported by the findings of a multiple-case
study.
After this short introduction basic concepts and related work will be presented. The
underlying definition of PPM success and research design will be discussed. The next
section deals with the findings of a representative literature review which aims to
identify PPM success factors. The success factors will be verified by means of a
multiple-case study research. Subsequently, detailed PPM success factor items from an
extended literature review will be presented and interpreted. The article ends with a
conclusion and names the implications for future research.
2. Basic concepts and related work
2.1 Process performance management
In general, performance can be understood as a contribution of a company-internal or
company-external individual or group to achieve the goals of a company (Chamoni et al.,
2006). Machines or information systems (IS) can be used as support. In this article,
performance is defined as the degree of achieving company goals or the potential
output of all stakeholder-relevant attributes of an organization (Krause, 2005). The
differentiation between the three views capability, process, and result which focus
on different aspects of performance creation (Pleier, 2008) complements this definition.
Performance management is a company-wide concept which comprises a control
cycle containing the four steps plan, improve, control, and communicate, each of
which affects the performance and underlying mental models of involved protagonists
(Krause, 2005). The recorded data are often financial ones and are used for corporate
controlling supported by management information systems (MIS). When the system
focuses explicitly on process controlling and the collection of process relevant data and
measures, it is called PPM (Melchert et al., 2004).

The term PPM (He, 2004; Jeston and Nelis, 2008; Heckl and Moormann, 2010;
Cleven et al., 2010) narrows the view of performance management on the process level.
It can be seen as the active management of business processes through planning,
monitoring and controlling using process key performance indicators (KPIs) (Blasini et al.,
2011). PPM provides a detailed understanding of how a process can be designed and
redesigned to improve the performance, and focuses on identifying performance outcome
measures (Martin, 2008). The main goal is to identify optimization potentials in business
processes (Chamoni et al., 2006). Even though formal modeling of these processes is not a
mandatory requirement, it is strongly recommended for transparency reasons (Oehler,
2006). Although the term PPM is still not very popular, neither in research nor in practice,
the concept is nonetheless being developed (Cleven et al., 2011).
2.2 PPM success
Numerous empirically validated models for measuring the general IS success were
proposed (Urbach et al., 2009) which lead to a common understanding of success and of
possible success specifications. Several success and acceptance models were developed
over the last few decades to make the success of methods, IS or the acceptance of
technologies measurable. The DeLone and McLean (2003) IS success model is still the
dominant basis of IS success measurement (Urbach et al., 2009). Several empirical
studies confirmed the significance of this success model (Petter and McLean, 2009)
which comprises information quality, system quality, service quality, and
especially the dependent success variables (intention to) use, user satisfaction, and
net benefits (DeLone and McLean, 2003).
Another well-known and intensively used model is the technology acceptance model
(TAM) by Davis (1989). It consists of two main categories: perceived usefulness and
perceived ease of use, which lead to increased actual system use. The re-specified
version of the IS success model by Seddon (1997), who integrates both approaches, adds
expectations about net benefits and emphasizes the different levels of IS success
measurement individual, organization and society.
Performance and success are often connected to efficiency and effectiveness
(Budaus and Dobler, 1977). The benefit from the use of information is the maintenance or
change of mental models. This leads to both higher efficiency and higher effectiveness,
and therefore to a higher organizational and financial performance of the company
(Barr et al., 1992).
Since our research needs a clear definition of the dependent variables in order to
identify related independent success factors, we will use the following understanding
of PPM success: PPM success represents the successful development, implementation,
and application of PPM in practice and is characterized according to the IS success
model of DeLone and McLean (2003) and to the understanding of Budaus and Dobler
(1977) by a high usage of PPM, high efficiency and effectiveness of the underlying
business processes, and high user satisfaction, which relates on PPM users like
decision makers or employees who execute the monitored processes.
2.3 Related work
Although it is generally discussed in BPM how business process performance can be
increased (Rosemann et al., 2004), the narrower focus on PPM and its success factors
is relatively new and so far not a very intensely discussed topic in literature.

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Some authors investigated the influence of performance management on the overall

performance of a company and identified success factors (Gleich, 2001), while other
authors searched for statistically significant relationships between success factors and
the performance of a particular division of a company, e.g. marketing communication
( Janz, 2008). Additionally, there are studies about the development, implementation
(Schreyer, 2007), and introduction (Krause, 2005) of performance management systems
and their influence on the companys performance.
Recently PPM success factors have been discussed as well (Ariyachandra and Frolick,
2008). An exploratory factor analysis showed that, in addition to the extent to which
performance measurement is conducted, the use of established methods and standards
is to be seen as crucial for successful PPM users (Bucher and Winter, 2006). Cleven et al.
(2010) analyzed four stereotype problem situations of PPM and highlighted optimization
potentials. For example, KPI enthusiasts define and implement a large amount of
performance indicators, but only monitor and control a small number of processes using
these KPIs.
These contributions provide a fruitful basis for our research. They give hints to
success factors as well as to the definition of their successful application. However, we
found neither empirical research nor reviews of literature aiming to identify factors for
PPM success.
3. Research design
3.1 Overall research design
The aim of this paper is to identify the key factors of PPM success. It is based on the
multi-method research method of Gable (1994) and presents the findings of its first five
stages: the qualitative research. More precisely, we conducted two different literature
reviews and five case studies.
The literature review provides deep insights into PPM success. It is split into two
parts a representative and an extended literature review. Due to the numerous and
manifold domains in which success factors for PPM can occur, a representative literature
review (Cooper, 1988; Fettke, 2006; vom Brocke et al., 2009) has to be conducted first to get
an overview of possible success factors. Since we use formative measurement models
for the success factors, the extended literature review aims to identify detailed success
factor items from literature. The literature review is based on the method review (Cooper
and Hedges, 1994) and consists of a five-phase procedure:
(1) formulation of the problem and the objectives;
(2) collection of data;
(3) data evaluation;
(4) analysis and interpretation of the data; and
(5) publication of the results of the analysis.
While problem and objective of the investigation have already been formulated in the
introduction (identify success factors which contribute to the PPM success), the
article serves to publish the results of the analysis. With phases 2 and 3, the research
procedure of the literature review is defined, for the research at hand it is introduced in
Section 3.2 for the representative literature review, and in Section 3.4 for the extended
literature review. The findings of both literature reviews, comprising also their

analysis and interpretation (phase 4) are presented in Section 4 (representative

literature review) and in Section 6 (extended literature review). To synthesize the
literature, the concept-centric approach according to Webster and Watson (2002) is
followed in both reviews.
To avoid uniqueness and artifactual conditions surrounding the case, a multiple
case-study instead of a single case study was conducted (Yin, 2009). The case study is
guided by the exploratory-related methodological advices given in Dube and Pare
(2003) and based on the approach of Yin (2009) and includes the following steps:
(1) development of case study research design;
(2) preparing for data collection;
(3) data collection;
(4) analysis of data (using pattern matching and coherent cross-case synthesis);
and
(5) writing the case study report.
Since this article focuses on the literature review, only a short summary of the case
study a short discussion of their findings will be given in Section 5. Additionally,
a brief description of research design is contained in Section 3.3.
The study at hand is a first step of a comprehensive investigation which follows all
phases of the multi-method research design according to Gable (1994), which combines
qualitative as well as quantitative research methods and consists of a literature review,
a case study method, and a survey approach. The integration of the two research
methods to one single research design aims to increase the robustness of results (Kaplan
and Duchon, 1988). Advantages of combining methods generally and, more specifically,
of combining qualitative and quantitative methods have been intensively discussed in
literature (Gable, 1994). Therefore, our future research will aim at developing a PPM
success model containing measurable items and relationships between dependent and
independent variables. This conceptual PPM success model will be used to develop and
conduct a world-wide survey. Using the partial least squares (PLS)-path modeling
approach (component-based structural equation model), we will obtain statistically
evaluated results of our PPM success model by analyzing the influence of the identified
success factors on PPM success.
3.2 Representative literature review on PPM success factors
Collection of data. Different types of literature sources were included to obtain a collection
of literature which is as objective as possible: books, theses, proceedings of conferences
as well as journal papers. During the conceptualization of the topic the terms PPM,
performance measurement, and process controlling were identified as appropriate
search keys. Additionally (critical) success factor(s) and IS success were used as well
as the German counterparts of all these terms. Forward and backward search completed
the collection of literature resources.
The selection of relevant resources was made by means of the following three
criteria: appropriate unit of analysis (IS success, especially PPM success), inclusion of
critical success factors and preferably empirical validation of results. According to
these criteria, 12 contributions were identified to be appropriate for further evaluation
(Table I).

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Evaluation of data. We applied a systematic procedure based on the qualitative

content analysis according to Mayring (2000). The inductive category development
guides the development of categories to which the identified success factors could be
summarized later.
3.3 Case study
Collection of data. To obtain more reliable and valid results, four companies from four
different economic sectors (Table II) were selected to collect data. For reasons of
confidentiality, the real names of the organizations are not revealed. To collect
comparable data, we conducted semi-structured interviews and surveys concerning
actual and supposed success factors as well as barriers and constraints towards PPM
success. The collection and analysis phases were supported by case study protocols and
a case study database.
3.4 Extended literature review
Collection and evaluation of data. In addition to proprietary journal homepages, relevant
literature sources were selected from the following widely known data bases: ACM
Digital Library, EBSCOhost, Emerald, SAGE journals online, ScienceDirect, and
SpringerLink. Combinations of the terms process, performance, management,
measurement, success, and factors were used as search keys. In total,
144 contributions were shortlisted for the investigation. 106 of these contributions
came from journals, eight from conference proceedings, and 30 were of other origins
(electronic articles, book sections, and books). After analyzing these 144 contributions

Table I.
Literature resources

Domain

Literature resources

Information systems
Management accounting
Business process management
Performance measurement/
management
Process performance management

Davis (1989), DeLone and McLean (2003), Urbach et al. (2010)

Steiners (2005), Eckey (2006)
Bucher and Winter (2006), Bandara (2007)
Gleich (2001), Krause (2005), Schreyer (2007), Janz (2008)

Period of
time

Case

Sector/department

Researcher

Case I

Service sector

Authors 1 and 2 2007-2009

Case II
Case III
Case IIIa

Energy industry
Manufacturing sector
Human resource
management (HRM)
Quality management
(QM)
Financial services

Author 1

Project documentations, physical

artefacts and direct observations
Spring 2010 Interviews

Author 2

2010

Author 2 and
students
Author 2

2010-2011

Case IIIb
Table II.
Cases of the case study
and data collection

Cleven et al. (2010)

Case IV

Winter
2010

Data collection

Interview, survey and project

documentations
Interview, survey, and project
documentations
Interview

extensively (by title, abstract and content), 33 of them contained at least one critical
success factor with regard to applying PPM. Therefore, these 33 contributions were
selected to undergo further evaluation, 24 of them from journals (21 different journals),
four from books and five come from other sources (reports, etc.). Eight contributions
follow an empirical research design, ten can be assigned to case study design and the
remaining 15 relate to literature review and/or design science. Table III lists the
literature resources of each of the three categories.

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4. Results of the representative literature review

In summary, 11 PPM success factors (Table IV) were identified. We paid close
attention to ensure that the success factors do not overlap.
While developing the categories, we found success factors which were highly
case-specific or related to a unique project success (e.g. project implementation
Empirical research design (Emp)

Case study design (CS)

Literature review/design science

(L/D)

Baidoun (2003), Davenport and Beers (1995), Manikas and

Terry (2010), Psomas et al. (2011), Ravesteyn and Batenburg
(2010), Santa et al. (2010), Willaert et al. (2007), Zairi and
Sinclair (1995)
Barnes et al. (2003), Baumol (2010), Beatham et al. (2005),
Hoque (2008), Kumar and Markeset (2007), Lapinski et al.
(2006), Lauras et al. (2010), List and Machaczek (2004),
Okkonen (2007), Rantanen et al. (2007)
Ahmed (2002), Dervitsiotis (1999), Feurer and Chaharbaghi
(1995), Heckl and Moormann (2010), Krause (2005), Peters et al.
(2007), Purbey et al. (2007), Robson (2004), Rogers et al. (2005),
Sureshchandar and Leisten (2005), Tennant and Roberts
(2003), Tucker and Pitt (2009), Walker (2005), Watson (1993),
Yang et al. (2010)

Success factor

Literature resources

Expertise/
competence
Process models
Corporate strategy
Information quality

Steiners (2005), Bandara (2007), Schreyer (2007)

System quality
Service quality
Process quality
Ease of use
Usefulness
Management
support
Incentive system

Krause (2005), Cleven et al. (2010)

Gleich (2001), Krause (2005), Schreyer (2007), Cleven et al. (2010)
DeLone and McLean (2003), Urbach et al. (2010), Eckey (2006),
Bucher and Winter (2006), Gleich (2001), Janz (2008), Krause (2005),
Schreyer (2007), Cleven et al. (2010)
DeLone and McLean (2003), Urbach et al. (2010), Steiners (2005),
Bandara (2007), Krause (2005), Cleven et al. (2010)
DeLone and McLean (2003), Urbach et al. (2010)
Urbach et al. (2010), Bandara (2007), Bucher and Winter (2006),
Gleich (2001), Krause (2005)
Davis (1989), Bandara (2007)
Davis (1989)
Urbach et al. (2010), Bucher and Winter (2006), Bandara (2007),
Gleich (2001)
Gleich (2001), Schreyer (2007)

Table III.
Literature resources to
identify PPM success
factor items

Table IV.
Literature review of
success factors

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(Wixom and Watson, 2001), project management (Bandara, 2007), collaboration

quality (Urbach et al., 2010)). Since we focused particularly on case-independent success
factors of continuous PPM application, these categories could not be used further. Context
variables were not included, either. They can have an influence on the success factors
themselves or a moderating effect on the relationship between the success factors and
PPM success. There are two categories of context variables: external context variables
(e.g. intensity of competition, market dynamics, etc.) and internal context variables
(e.g. enterprise size, degree of formalization in the enterprise, formalization of information
management, etc.) (Gleich, 2001; Janz, 2008; Steiners, 2005).
Expertise/competence
This success factor deals with the influence of individual competence on the PPM
success. Ideally, staff members involved with PPM should have business knowledge,
technical knowledge, methodical and product knowledge, company-specific
knowledge, and project management and communication knowledge (Schreyer,
2007; Steiners, 2005; Bandara, 2007; Rosemann, 2000).
Process models
Detailed process knowledge is mandatory. BPM maturity comprises the consistent
process documentation/modeling, defined process officers (owners), and consistent
and transparent process flows beyond functional or system borders (Cleven et al.,
2010). Thus, PPM without detailed knowledge about the process, its design, and
cause-effect relationships cannot be successful.
Corporate strategy
Connection of strategic targets and performance indicators (Gleich, 2001; Krause,
2005), confirmation of the corporate strategy (Gleich, 2001; Schreyer, 2007), and, more
generally, part of a corporate performance management (Cleven et al., 2010)
emphasize the need for a corporation-wide performance management with PPM being
a part of it. Successful PPM is characterized by a stringent connection between process
performance indicators and corporate strategy.
Information quality
This success factor has the highest number of mentions (nine) in the analyzed literature.
Processes can only be controlled if the necessary information about their performance
is measured and made visible. Therefore, information quality, which is the main
basis for controlling activities, represents one of the main success factors. Related items like
completeness, accuracy understandability, reliability (DeLone and McLean, 1992),
balance, and consistency (Janz, 2008) of information and/or of the underlying
performance indicators can be subsumed under this success factor as well as measurement
depth (Gleich, 2001; Janz, 2008) and data quality (Cleven et al., 2010).
System quality
Referring to usability, availability, reliability, adaptability, responsiveness
(DeLone and McLean, 2003), navigation, design, searchability, structure,
functionality, accessibility (Urbach et al., 2009), support of the entire PPM lifecycle

(Krause, 2005), flexibility, and integration (Bandara, 2007), this success factor sums up
all desirable properties of the PPM system.
Service quality
This relatively new measurement instrument uses the dimensions of tangibles,
reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy to measure service quality (DeLone
and McLean, 2003). It represents the overall user support that has become more and
more important over the last decades.
Process quality
Urbach et al. (2010) added this success factor to make a measurement of the quality of
process support possible. Items of this success factor are methodological support in
the implementation phase (Krause, 2005) as well as process quality in the application
phase (process efficiency, reliability, regularity, etc.) (Bucher and Winter, 2006;
Gleich, 2001; Krause, 2005).
Ease of use
This success factor represents freedom from difficulty or great effort (Davis, 1989) in
the application of PPM. Davis proved empirically that ease of use (ease of learning,
controllability, understandability, etc.) can lead to increased usage. Bandara (2007)
confirmed that modeling aids are critical in process modeling. In general, aids (tools,
techniques and guidelines) which are perceived as being closely related to one another
can improve the ease of use of methods, systems and technologies.
Usefulness
This is the second of the two essential key factors for the acceptance of information
technology identified by Davis. Usefulness is defined as the degree to which a person
believes that using a particular system would enhance his or her job performance
(Davis, 1989). Transferred to the topic of this article, PPM methods and systems can only
be successfully applied if their usefulness (effectiveness, ease of work, increase of
productivity, etc.) is guaranteed.
Management support
Regardless of the unit of analysis, the support of (top) management is one of the most
mentioned success factors for IS. Bandara (2007) identified top management support
as one of the essential project specific success factors in process modeling. Wixom and
Watson (2001) also confirmed a high significance of management support concerning
data warehousing success. Bucher and Winter (2006), in particular, stress the
importance of top management support and of professionalizing process management
in the organization.
Incentive system
Gleich (2001) identified performance incentives and performance standards which
directly influence the corporate profitability as one of the key subsystems of a performance
measurement system. Schreyer (2007) collected success factors for implementing
performance measurement systems identified by scientists and practitioners. An essential
and often mentioned success factor is the employee compensation on the basis of the

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employees performance. Such an incentive system can increase the motivation of

employees and, as a consequence, corporation performance, too.
5. Results of the case study
The analysis of the data showed that with three exceptions all of the predefined
success factors could be confirmed in practice:
.
In particular, information quality showed similar to the literature review a
high number of mentions in the case study. While the project of case I consisted of
adapting process data coming from different sources at different times, the PPM
project of organization B (case II) showed also a high importance of information and
data quality. Although the organization could build on a rather comprehensive
description of 22 regularly updated business processes, for which many key figures
at different levels of detail were measured, the project was stopped early. The
measurement of such a large number of key figures which in themselves, were very
useful turned out to be very complex and the accuracy of measurement challenging.
.
In contrast, process models and related items were mentioned even more often
in the different cases than in the literature. In particular, case IIIb showed that
up-to-date process documentations are equally important as knowing which
factors influence the processes you want to control, as well as being able to
control theses influence factors. The head of the QM department argued that
even if he understood the existing process and detailed process documentations,
it would not be possible to simultaneously control the output and the
performance of the process, if he could not control the input, i.e. influence factors
like manpower or IT support.
The following three success factors could not be confirmed in practice: usefulness,
service quality, and incentive system:
(1) None of the interviewees stressed out that usefulness or similar factors are
PPM-specific success factors, and neither project documentations nor
observations allocated any importance to this factor, either. This was a little
surprising for us, because the literature strongly supports this factor. We think
that one reason for this could be that our interviewees see usefulness rather as
a result (success measure, i.e. dependent variable) of PPM application than as a
success factor for the application.
(2) Service quality was not mentioned, because most of the PPM methods of the
cases were self-developed by the companies. That was why the performance
managers knew their own concepts as well as the implemented systems and did
not need any further support.
(3) Incentive systems could not be verified in the case study, either. Although
some interviewees assessed them as interesting, they said that these systems
were currently not used, e.g. due to labor laws being very strict in Germany:
Incentive systems are desirable. Currently, however, there is no planning to
introduce such an incentive system, but I would appreciate it (Executive
Director HRM Organization IIIa). However, this success factor is of importance
due to the high number of mentions in literature and the intention of some of the
interviewees to introduce incentive systems in future.

To obtain reliable evidence as to whether all three success factors which could not be
verified in the case study are PPM-critical or not, further case studies will have to be
conducted in the ongoing research.
6. Results of the extended literature review
6.1 Resulting success factors and items
Since the selected literature is very heterogeneous, the contingency table is sparsely
filled. The representation of the success factors is concept-centric, again (Table V).
Although the findings of the representative literature review implied that the
success factors process quality and ease of use are important, rather none of these
success factors were mentioned in the literature analyzed in the extended review which
had a rather narrower focus (PPM) than the representative review before which
included general success factors of IS. In summary, a low number of mentions is
tantamount to a less strong impact on PPM success than other success factors.
While collecting the PPM success factors items, the previously identified success
factors appeared to be a helpful framework for structuring and ordering the collected
items. However, we changed the description of the first three success factors due to the
findings of the literature review:
.
To point out the differentiation between the individual knowledge of someone
(business, company, product, project management, etc.) and the knowledge of the
business processes (process flow and design) within the enterprise, we changed the
description of both success factors. Expertise/competence was specified to
individual knowledge and competence, whereas process models was generalized
to process knowledge which includes process models.
.
Connection to the corporate strategy was changed to integrated performance
management, which emphasizes the overall goal to integrate different views on
performance (profitability, processes, etc.) into one comprehensive perspective of
the companys performance. The connection to controlling, risk or quality
management completes this view.
6.2 Discussion of the success factors and items
There are fewer success factor items mentioned in the selected literature than expected
(Table V). On average, only approximately 6.5 mentions in the literature could be
identified for each success factor. Information quality shows the highest number of
mentions (26). Taking a closer look at the underlying items of information quality,
two items emerge, in particular:
(1) Communication is mentioned by most of the selected literature resources
(eight explicit mentions). Thus, successful PPM seems to depend mainly on the
communication of the information gained through process monitoring.
Communication includes different objects of the entire PPM lifecycle,
especially the communication of process goals, of the effectively achieved
process output, and of the performance of the critical business processes (actual
and future). Thus, in our study communication is revealed to be one of the
most promising items to measure high information quality.
(2) Inclusiveness which represents the measurement of all related aspects shows
five explicit mentions. Thus, the success of PPM depends on the degree of

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Table V.
Mention of success
factors and items

Success factor item

Individual knowledge and Learning, understanding,

competence
and application
External relations
Job knowledge
Leadership
Decision making
Process knowledge
Clarity of core processes
Process knowledge
Integrated performance
Understanding of corporate
management
culture and metrics
Clear goal and scope of work
Importance of a vision and strategy
Connection to other management
systems
Integration in one technical system
Connection to the process management
Information quality
Inclusiveness (measurement of all
related aspects)
Understandability
Reliability
Credibility
Quality tools
Performance information
Universality (comparison under
various conditions)
Measurability (required data are
measurable)
Clear goal and scope of work
Communication (e.g. of goals,
output, and performance)
System quality
Performance and productivity
Service quality
Service quality in general
Tangibles
Reliability
Responsiveness
Assurance
Empathy
Centralized support
Process quality

Ease of use

Usefulness
Usefulness
Mgmt. support
Top management support and
commitment
Incentive system
Extrinsic motivation (performance
reward/punishment)

Categories of selected
literature; no. of mentions
Emp (8) CS (10) L/D (15) S
2

1
1

1
1
1
1
2

14

1
2
2
1
1

3
8

1
1
1
1
1
1

26

1
1

1
1

1
1
1
1

1
2

1
3

1
3

1
1
1
1
1
1
1

2
3
1

10
0
0
2
1

1
1

covering of processes by means of measures and figures. If relevant performance

indicators are not provided by the PPMS, the information quality is low and
processes cannot be managed properly.
Another result of the literature review is that the success factors regarding information
quality are mentioned more often and thus seem to be more important than factors
regarding process quality or process knowledge. This result is interesting because a
necessary requirement for achieving high information quality is a good knowledge of
the business processes. We think that the knowledge of processes, their design and their
relationship to the companys resources (employees, technical systems, etc.) are more
important for PPM than has been pointed out in the literature so far. Since poorly
specified processes do not lead to optimized procedures in business, it is hard to identify
the relevant measures and to achieve understandable, reliable, and credible values for
the measures. Obviously the relationship between well designed processes and high
information quality in PPM is not apparent and should be the focus of further
investigations.
As a side effect of the extended literature review we observed that most of the
analyzed literature resources presented concrete measures and figures, e.g. throughput
time, quantity of output, number of complaints, and so forth. Thus, the selection of
useful process performance indicators seems to be an important topic in literature.
Indicators, measures, and figures were not included in our collection of success factors,
because they are situation-specific and depend on many external and company-internal
factors, e.g. economic sector, product, company, size of the company, etc. However, the
fact that a majority of contributions show how to measure specific business processes
by means of appropriate measures and figures implicates a perceived importance of the
right process KPI selection.
Taking a closer look at whether the identified success factors are based on empirical
research or on theoretical considerations, further implications can be derived.
Contributions characterized by empirical research design, in particular, emphasize the
integration of PPM and company-wide performance management, while related success
factors items could not be found in literature which is based on theoretical considerations.
Despite the request found in the literature to connect process goals and measures closely
to the companys strategy, it seems that theory does not consider this as a problem. This
could be due to the fact that the adjustment of PPM to the companys strategy is already
included in many PPM-related approaches and methods. Rather in practice, an even more
intense demand for integration and strategy-compliant PPM is obvious.
A further result is that service quality seems to be a PPM success factor to which
little importance is attached in practice (see multiple-case study). Although this success
factor is strongly called for by researchers, only one contribution (Davenport and
Beers, 1995) discussed the measuring of service quality, while other empirical or case
study-related literature resources do not stress this success factor at all. Obviously
practitioners do not see the relationship between service quality and PPM success.
A reason for this could be that service quality is primarily seen as a success factor
for IS. PPM concepts are heterogeneous and consist of methodical procedures
supported by IS. It could be that from a practitioners view the theoretical concept
of PPM is apparent and PPM is not primarily seen as an IT system. The low number of
mentions of system quality underlines this assumption.

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7. Conclusion and outlook

The purpose of this article was to identify success factors which contribute to the
PPM success. To achieve this purpose, we conducted a literature review comprising a
representative and an extended review part. A multiple-case study was conducted to
verify the identified success factors in practice. The results of this article are, on
the one hand, those PPM success factors and, on the other hand, detailed success factor
items which contribute to the successful development, implementation, and application
of PPM.
The evaluation of the data showed that 11 different success factors have to be
considered when implementing and applying PPM successfully. Some of the success
factors seem to be more important due to their high mention in literature and due to the
findings of our case study research: Individual knowledge and competence, process
knowledge, integrated performance management, information quality, system
quality, and management support. Information quality is the most mentioned
success factor and includes promising items like communication and inclusiveness
(measurement of all related aspects). Some success factors showed higher relevance in
literature (service quality and incentive system), while the case study emphasized the
importance of process quality. Only two success factors showed a lower relevance in our
research: Ease of use and usefulness.
The results lead to the following conclusions which at the same time have an impact
on further research:
.
The high importance of data and information quality suggests to stronger
integrate measures to improve information and data quality in PPM concepts. In
addition, further research is needed to define the relation between the two items
communication and inclusiveness and the success factor information
quality to achieve a higher quality.
.
Also in further research, reasons for the lower relevance of process quality and
process knowledge will have to be identified. Since in our opinion process
quality and knowledge are highly relevant for PPM success, the reasons for such
misinterpretations should be eliminated. In addition, PPM concepts should be
reconsidered to enable the integration of process modeling techniques.
.
It is not only the individual success factor that can be a starting point to enhance
PPM methods or concepts. The list of identified PPM success factors represents
also a valuable basis for further research. We were able to identify for almost
each success factor several items which substantiate their relevance (except for
the success factors process quality and ease of use). After analyzing the
relation between success factors and distinct PPM concepts it shows that the
success factors can be used to support the selection of an appropriate PPM
concept. In addition, they can be used as the basis for a PPM success model.
Since we followed the multi-method of Gable, the next steps of our research will focus
on developing a PPM success model to conceptualize a structural equation model. We
will statistically analyze the data which we will collect by means of a worldwide
online-survey to obtain empirically validated PPM success factors.
Admittedly, our research has some shortcomings. Since there are no standardized
terms regarding PPM, we cannot be sure to have included every important paper, article,
or book section into our literature review. Nevertheless, we took up a broad perspective

in order to identify critical PPM success factors. We conducted a comprehensive

literature review and, in our opinion, received robust, reliable, and non-overlapping
success factors. We assume that these success factors are valid for literature reviews
using other search keys, too.

Success factors
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Corresponding author
Josef Blasini can be contacted at: [email protected]

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