THEME
As process-oriented organizations have traditionally focused on time, cost, and quality of their processes, one issue has largely dropped off the agenda: the ecological and social consequences. With the growing awareness for global crises such as rapid climate change and the social divide, individuals, organizations, and governments increasingly recognize the need for sustainable development. As a consequence, the notion of sustainability has evolved around economical, social, and ecological issues.
MIT’s Peter Senge, for example, calls for the “necessary revolution” – one that is not only political but implies a paradigmatic shift towards a sustainable economy. Obviously, challenges at a global level cannot be solved by rather reactive solutions that target the mere symptoms rather than the underlying imbalances and potential misbelieves. What is needed is a fundamental, paradigmatic shift. Organizations are hence forced to also recognize the environmental implications of resource consumption and social cost caused by their processes (the processes’ ecological and social footprint).
While the past years have seen a shift towards incremental process improvements, as opposed to radical re-design, one may argue that existent processes and their mere variations will not provide ample responses to the challenge of creating socially and environmentally sustainable business processes. In many cases, organizations are required to innovate in order to realize the shift towards sustainable processes. It is our belief that the IS discipline in general, and the field of business process management (BPM) in particular, can meaningfully contribute to this important field of research.
GOALS
The aim of this workshop is to contribute to the discussion of the role and relevance of business processes and business process management in the context of economical, social, and ecological sustainability. In particular, it is intended to provide thought leaders with a forum, where they can develop and discuss a research agenda for this beyond doubt important area. Potential topics range from the design of sustainable business processes to the development of theories at the levels of individuals, groups, organizations, and markets.
TOPICS
Topics of interest include (but are not limited to):
- The relationship between ‘Green IT’ and BPM
- Application of IS theories to the field of sustainable processes
- Development of new foundational theory in the field of sustainable business processes
- The role of BPM for energy efficiency and social responsibility
- Analyzing the relationships between different sustainability targets
- Measurement systems for sustainable processes
- Business intelligence for sustainability reporting
- Tools and methods for designing sustainable business processes
- Aspects of business transformation in the context of sustainable processes
- Aspects of organizational culture in the context of sustainable processes
- IT-enabled sustainability management
- Case studies on sustainability initiatives
IMPORTANT DATES
Paper submission deadline: 30 May 2010
Notification of acceptance: 30 June 2010
Camera ready: 16 July 2010
Workshop day: 13 September 2010
SUBMISSIONS AND PLANNED ACTIVITIES
We invite rigorous and relevant studies employing a wide variety of methods. Empirical (qualitative and quantitative) studies as well as design-oriented research, conceptual papers on theory development, and industry papers will be considered. It is thus hoped that the workshop will provide a wide range of BPM researchers, including those from the North America region, with a forum for engaging with a topical and relevant BPM research topic.
The workshop will consist of presentations of the accepted papers and an additional keynote speaker (to be confirmed). Moreover, it is intended that participants engage in a discussion on a future research agenda for BPM in the context of sustainability.
Papers will be reviewed by at least three members of the program committee. All workshop papers are expected to be published by Springer as a post-proceeding volume (to be sent around 4 months after the workshop) in the Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing (LNBIP) series. At least one author for each accepted paper has to register for the workshop and present the paper.
We invite authors to submit papers for presentation in any of the areas listed above. Only papers in English will be accepted, and the length of the paper must not exceed 10 pages. All papers must be formatted in LNBIP format (see http://www.springer.com/computer/lncs?SGWID=0-164-2-791344-0&changeHeader for details). The title page must contain a short abstract, a list of keywords and must not list author details. Papers should be submitted electronically via the EasyChair submission system: http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=susbpm2010
ORGANIZERS
Jan vom Brocke holds the Martin Hilti Chair in BPM at the University of Liechtenstein. He is Director of the Institute of Information Systems and President of the Liechtenstein Chapter of the AIS. Jan has more than ten years of experience in BPM projects and has published his work in more than 150 refereed papers at internationally perceived conferences and journals. He is author and editor of 14 books, including the International Handbook on BPM published by Springer in 2010. He is an invited speaker on BPM at a number of universities, such as the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland, the LUISS University in Rome, and the University of California at Berkeley. He has worked on EU projects on sustainability within the Intelligent Energy Program and serves as a scientific advisor to SwissCleantech, an economic association for a sustainable and dynamic economy (http://www.swisscleantech.ch).
Stefan Seidel is an Assistant Professor at the Martin Hilti Chair of BPM at the University of Liechtenstein. Stefan holds a doctorate (Dr. rer. pol) from the University of Muenster. Since 2007 he is an Associated Researcher to the BPM Group at Queensland University of Technology and to the ARC funded Center of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation (CCI). His main research interests include innovative and creative business processes. Stefan has a research background in qualitative methods, including the grounded theory method and design science research.
Program Committee
The group of associate editors brings together international thought leaders in the fields of BPM and sustainability research. The group accounts for the interdisciplinary character of the topic, for example including researchers from the field of energy consumption as well as industry practitioners. The range of international experts also integrates perspectives from different social and cultural backgrounds.
Salehu Anteneh (Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia)
Marie-Claude (Maric) Boudreau (University of Georgia, USA)
Marco de Marco (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Italy)
Peter Droege (University of Liechtenstein, Liechtenstein)
Peter Fettke (Saarland University, Germany)
Jan Recker (Queensland University of Technology, Australia)
Michael Rosemann (Queensland University of Technology, Australia)
Narcyz Roztocki, State University of New York, USA
Daniel Schmid (SAP AG, Germany)
Reima Suomi (Turku School of Economics, Finland)
Cathy Urquhart (Manchester Metropolitan University Business School, UK)
Richard (Rick) Watson (University of Georgia, USA)
Stanislaw Wrycza (University of Gdańsk, Poland)
Zhenxiang Zeng (Jessie) (Hebei University of Technology, China)
Contacts
Jan vom Brocke: jan.vom.brocke AT hochschule.li
Stefan Seidel: stefan.seidel AT hochschule.li
Submission system: http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=susbpm2010