How do BPM maturity and innovation relate in large companies?

Abstract

Due to the increasing level of globalization competition between companies is growing. As a consequence, large companies need to enhance both their productivity and innovation simultaneously. Where business process management methods, such as BPM maturity models, are typically seen as a means to improve performance and productivity, their impact on innovation is unclear. Therefor the objective of this study is to determine what the relation is between business process management maturity and Innovation in large companies. A research model is developed based on existing theory on innovation adoption, innovation value chain and BPM maturity models. Subsequently a questionnaire is constructed to gather data at four large European organizations. Based on both a correlation and regression analysis of the data provided by 143 respondents a moderate relation between the overall Innovation construct and BPM maturity is shown. The proportion of variance in innovation that can be explained by BPM maturity amounts to 22,4%. This means that investing in BPM capabilities is not enough to increase the innovation capability of an organization.