Robotic Process Automation: A Literature-Based Research Agenda

Abstract

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a comparably new way to automate business processes in organizations. It has been heavily adopted by practitioners, especially within the accounting discipline. However, scientific research seems to be lacking behind. There is no clear definition and no uniform understanding of advantages and disadvantages of RPA. To close this gap, we conduct a structured and systematic literature review to study published scholarly articles on RPA. We set out to identify advantages and disadvantages as well as best practices of RPA against the analytical background of the Business Process Management lifecycle. We can show that literature especially lacks information on quantifiable benefits of RPA. The collected best practices are especially relevant for practitioners. Based on our findings, we present an agenda for future research on RPA.

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