Speaker: Finn Klessascheck

Abstract: The business process management (BPM) discipline is concerned with supporting the implementation and enactment of business processes and improving their execution according to various goals. A core part in this is played by business process automation. While organizational and individual implications of business process automation are well-understood, higher-level consequences, such as value disagreements, depersonalization, and alienation, are less frequently considered in BPM research and practice. In this talk, I will present ongoing research that draws on a theory of rationalities to uncover such consequences that may arise from the way that business process automation is justified, applied, and evaluated. We will discuss various challenges and barriers when attempting to overcome formal-rational modes of business process automation to address these higher-level consequences, and consider the road ahead for the research project.

Short Bio: Finn Klessascheck is a PostDoc at the Chair of Information Systems and Business Process Management at the University of Münster and an associate researcher at the Weizenbaum Institute in Berlin. His research explores the integration of normative aspects, such as environmental sustainability and employee-centredness, into the discipline of business process management, especially into data-driven methods such as process mining and conformance checking. He is particularly interested in how organizations can design their business processes to be more efficient whilst also being more socially and environmentally sustainable. Before joining the University of Münster and the Flow Factory, he conducted his PhD research at the Technical University of Munich.