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1 Introduction
Business process management (BPM) research has a long tradition in the information systems (IS) discipline ([58] Trkman, 2010) and is a key priority of practitioners ([18] Gartner, Inc., 2010; [33] McKinsey, 2008). The concept of business processes as well as the approaches to their management and improvement have been studied from a multitude of perspectives, including such diverse concepts as total quality management (TQM) or business process reengineering (BPR). BPM is valued as a means to gain and sustain competitive advantage ([9] Broadbent et al. , 1999). It can be considered as a specific capability dedicated to process improvements and, more broadly, to organizational change ([56] Teece et al. , 1997; [58] Trkman, 2010).
The question of BPM capability development is becoming central in contemporary BPM research. In the past, scholars focused on the concept of BPM and corresponding techniques, modeling methods, and IS ([58] Trkman, 2010; [3] Bandara et al. , 2007; [30] Lindsay et al. , 2003). A multitude of IS to support BPM are available on the market, e.g. process modeling tools and workflow systems ([27] Ko et al. , 2009). Current research, however, puts less emphasis on BPM methods and tools, but increasingly focuses on the advancement of BPM capability in organizations, i.e. the skills to employ BPM methods and tools for business process change. This is especially obvious from the many BPM capability maturity models that have been suggested in recent years ([17] Fisher, 2004; [21] Hammer, 2007; [49] Rosemann et al. , 2006; [48] Rosemann and De Bruin, 2005; [40] Pöppelbuß and Röglinger, 2011).
BPM capability maturity models adopt a life cycle perspective on organizational change by depicting a unified, staged pattern of capability development ([6] Becker et al. , 2010; [10], [11] De Bruin et al. , 2005a, b; [31] McCormack et al. , 2009; [29] Lee and Kim, 2001; [59] Van de Ven and Poole, 1995). They typically outline a single path that organizations are recommended to pursue towards a target state of mature, i.e. sophisticated, BPM. Having reached the highest maturity level suggests being most effective and most efficient at BPM. These models agree that organizations typically start on low maturity stages with uncoordinated, ad hoc BPM efforts and then should progress step-by-step...