Abstract

Open Process Innovation – drawing from the literature on Open Innovation and Business Process

Management (BPM) – promotes the study of how to systematically make use of knowledge that lies

outside of an organization’s boundaries for process innovation initiatives. Open Innovation has been

heavily studied for product innovation, however, process innovation has not yet been researched from

such perspective. Against this background, we seek to investigate into variables that impact on the

qualities of Open Process Innovation taking the example of the public sector domain. This paper

examines how personnel resource scarcity exerts influence on the involvement of i) customers (here

citizens and local companies) and ii) consultants (here management and software consultants) in

public sector BPM. Our multi-method analysis shows that personnel resource scarcity has

consequences for BPM-related collaboration schema as it restricts the involvement of customers.

Based on our findings, implications for theory and practice are discussed, including implications for

studies on BPM maturity or on business process design. We call for a governance-theory perspective

on process innovation as a fundamental basis for understanding and designing the institutions that

shape collaboration in open process innovation.

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