Contributions of business process management promotion techniques to knowledge management: empirical evidence

Abstract

Goal: Knowledge Management (KM) has been increasingly used by organizations to help innovation and gain competitive advantage; however, the implementation of KM may turn in bad results, because of functional isolation. In contrast, Business Process Management (BPM) is an approach that removes functional isolation, establishing end-to-end processes perspective through cycle promotion and usage of management techniques. Therefore, the aim is to understand how the techniques used to promote BPM contribute to KM. Design/ Methodology/ Approach: In step 1, a systematic review of the literature was carried out on the scientific bases, trying to understand how the literature dealt with the relationship between BPM and KM techniques in the last 10 years. In step 2, there was a project to promote BPM in a public hospital. Stage 3 sought to understand the leaders' perceptions about the possible contributions of BPM techniques to KM. Results: BPM acts promoting participation and sharing (social aspects); collecting information about the organization and identifies problems (cognitive aspects); allowing decision making to solve problems (strategic aspects); explaining tacit information, organizing and compiling explicit information (technological aspects) in order to enable changes in systems. Limitations of the investigation: single case study.      Practical implications: BPM project collaborates to expand the diversity of information sources, opens the organization to external knowledge, with external consultant’s participation, also it provides communication expanding between areas, thus, improving customer service. Originality/ Value: this work contributes to show a valuable combination of techniques and how each one contributes to an essential resource as knowledge.