On the Potential of Business Process Management for Digital Entrepreneurship: Findings from a Literature Review

Wuttke, Tobias; Haskamp, Thomas; Perscheid, Michael; Uebernickel, Falk

Abstract

Digital ventures face significant organizational challenges when scaling, including increasing sales and employee numbers, that withdraw resources from working on their market offerings. While digital entrepreneurship literature stresses the importance of creating processes that balance structure and flexibility to deal with these challenges, business process management (BPM) literature focuses on improving pre-designed business processes. We reconcile these perspectives in a structured literature review to explore how BPM can support digital venturing. We identify synergies and tensions between BPM and digital entrepreneurship and propose three avenues for future research. These include exploring ambidextrous BPM in digital ventures, treating digital venturing as a business process, and developing capabilities for balancing flexibility and structure. We contribute to information systems research by critically reviewing the literature on BPM and digital entrepreneurship and providing potential areas for future investigation.

Keywords
Digital Ventures; Digital Entrepeneurship; Literature Review; Business Process Management