Emergent risks in business process change projects

Purpose – Even today still many business process change (BPC) initiatives fail and cause high overruns for organizations undergoing BPC initiatives. It is therefore important that BPC practitioners and researchers understand the risks inherent in BPC projects, and that they adapt their risk management processes to account for and mitigate these risks. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to investigate which emergent risks matter in BPC project. Design/methodology/approach – The authors adopted case survey methodology and investigated data from 130 case studies to show the nature and magnitude of relationships between organizational support risks, volatility risks, and BPC project and process performance. Findings – The results show that organizational support risks influence both the overall BPC project performance and process performance. Whereas, volatility risks influence project performance but appear to have no direct impact on the process performance. Both organizational support risks and volatility risks show influence on project management practices. Research limitations/implications – The study show several limitations that might be assigned to the case survey methodology, such as use of secondary data or publication bias. Practical implications – The authors provide considerable support which emergent risks matter in BPC projects. Originality/value – The contribution of this study takes several forms. It fills a gap in the literature concerning emergent risk factors inherent in BPC projects. The authors provided theoretical explanation of the effects of emergent risks on BPC project and process performance. And lastly, the authors have demonstrated the usefulness of case survey methodology in BPC research.