Workflow management social systems: A new socio-psychological perspective on process management

Abstract

The paper presents a study about one of the most successful cases of social software: Wikipedia. In particular we focused on the investigation of some socio-psychological aspects related to the use of the Italian Wikipedia. In our study, we considered Wikipedia active users classified into three different roles: registered users, administrators, and bureaucrats in order to discuss our findings with respect to these different groups of users. Workflow Management Systems are applications designed to support the definition and execution of business processes. Since we consider that social aspects are relevant in the accomplishment and coordination of activities managed by such technologies, we advocate for a new class of Workflow Management Systems, i.e., Workflow Management Social Systems. These systems should emphasize the social nature of workflow management. For this reason, we propose to consider some of the relevant psychological aspects we identified in our study, interpreted in the light of some relevant socio-psychological theories, for the design of this socially enriched workflow technology. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.