In Search for a Good Theory: Commuting between Research and Practice in Business Process Domain

• Kurt Lewin’s statement “There is nothing more practical than a good theory” says not so much about what is good for practice, but rather what it means to have a good theory. There exist a number of competing theories in the business process domain. The current paper is devoted to one of those that lie outside the mainstream direction. The purpose of the paper is not to present the theory as such, but to present the stages of how it was developed with the aim of becoming a “good” theory from the practical point of view. The paper is written as an experience report and goes through different stages of the development where research efforts where intermixed with practical tests. The theory in question is the state-oriented view on business processes. The basic idea of this theory lies in application of the general principles of the theory of dynamic systems to the business domain. The main direction for practical application of theoretical results is the development of IT-support for loosely structured business processes. Besides giving the history of the related research and practical efforts, the paper discusses the lessons learned that can be of interest for the development of other theoretical models/views in the business process domain.

Ämnesord

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Data- och informationsvetenskap -- Systemvetenskap, informationssystem och informatik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Computer and Information Sciences -- Information Systems (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Computer and Systems Sciences

data- och systemvetenskap

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

kon (ämneskategori)