Organizing Robotic Process Automation: Balancing Loose and Tight Coupling

Abstract

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is penetrating organizations at an accelerating rate. This trend is challenging the existing IT governance structures, because RPA usually is acquired and implemented by local business units, outside the control of the IT function. Consequently, how to organize and govern RPA initiatives is a topical issue. The recommendations from prior research are unclear, and there is a call for more research on this area. In this paper, we report from a study on RPA usage in three firms. In particular, we investigate the organizational consequences of having local business units manage the RPA initiatives. We make use of lightweight IT research as our analytical lens, contributing to research by unveiling the consequences and considerations of decentralized management of RPA.

The Link between Business Process Management and Quality Management

“…Based on the insights of Chang (2006), Schönreiter (2018), Chountalas and Lagodimos (2019), and other researchers reviewed in this paper, it can be argued that BPM is not just a completely separate autonomous concept. Moreover, it is not a management concept focused exclusively on IT (Osmundsen et al 2019). Neither is it just another management theory running in parallel with the concept of quality management.…”

“…The organizations that integrate and implement digital technologies are much more innovative than other organizations (Osmundsen et al 2019). Information systems have paid special attention to BPM and have begun to incorporate this concept into the curriculum of the IS model, research, and practice (Seethamraju 2012).…”

“…According to research, the return on investment in RPA varies from 30 to 200 percent in the first year. Research also reveals that RPA affects some activities, and the effect usually includes increasing productivity and the reduction in redundancies or removal of processes/functions from the organization (Osmundsen et al 2019). It should be noted, however, that the IT standardization should follow the standardization of processes and not the other way round (Schönreiter 2018).…”

“…This leads not only to the fundamental transformation of an organization but also that of the entire industry. Digitization of business processes in many cases becomes the key to increasing business efficiency (Osmundsen et al 2019). In other words, in recent years, the digital transformation has been changing the economic environment of organizations (Fischer et al 2019), which highlights the importance of business process management while developing digitization (Martinez 2019).…”

Robotic Process Automation: Hype or Hope?

“…For this purpose, software robots are configured to capture and interpret existing applications [1,2,13] mostly on the level of graphical interfaces [5,9,14]. Thus, the robot imitates human activity [6,8,15,16] to carry out workflows consisting of multiple steps [17]. In general, definitions of RPA vary depending on the level of abstraction and the technique used to configure a robot.…”