A Technology Adaptation Model for Business Process Automation

A number of new technologies aimed at automating office work has been developed over the last 20 years with seemingly little impact on overall office productivity. We propose a conceptual model for technology adaptation for business process automation that stresses both technology-organization fit and technologyprocess fit. The goal of our study is to develop a systematic approach that addresses the needs for the organization to be adaptive and for work to be flexible. The technology adaptation model we develop is useful for technology providers in the workflow management area and for business managers who wish to take advantage of the new work-related technologies. 1. Introduction Industry and academia have embraced a range of new ideas about organizational structure [Galbraith95] and have turned to business process reengineering as a way of bringing about rapid improvements in the efficiency, responsiveness and flexibility of organizations [Hammer&Champy93]. These two sets of ideas..