Success factors in process performance management

Purpose – Although process performance management (PPM), doubtlessly contributes to the increase of business performance, it has been given only little attention to date. The purpose of this paper is to provide a better understanding of what constitutes successful PPM and to identify critical success factors in PPM. Design/methodology/approach – The authors conducted two complementary literature reviews – a representative literature review to get an overview of possible success factors, and an extended literature review to identify detailed success factor items. To increase the reliability of the success factors, a multiple case‐study was additionally conducted. Findings – In the first literature review – the representative one – 11 success factors of PPM were identified, to which several detailed PPM success factor items could be identified in the extended literature review. Obviously, the success factor “information quality” is much more mentioned in literature than factors regarding “process quality” or “system quality”. Research limitations/implications – Since there are no standardized terms regarding PPM, it is challenging to include all important papers into the literature review. The next steps to develop a PPM success model are to conceptualize a structural equation model and to conduct a worldwide online‐survey. Practical implications – The findings of this research serve as a basis for a PPM success model, which enables practitioners to focus on what is really important for successful PPM. Originality/value – The application of a multi‐methodological research approach resulted in success factors whose importance was evaluated by their frequency of occurrence in literature, as well as by experts in real‐life enterprises.