Process Management in Virtual Worlds - Virtual Reality as Innovation Driver in Organizations

Due to growing price pressure, advancing digitalization and shorter product life cycles, organizations are increasingly required to continuously improve their business processes. However, the responsible process management faces barriers such as low motivation to involve of employees, complex process models and a lack of contextualization of business processes. To overcome these barriers, this cumulative dissertation takes a novel approach that explores the use of virtual reality (VR) in the management of business processes in a work context using a design science research framework. After a potential analysis, the requirements assessment, development and evaluation of a VR artifact for interactive and collaborative process modeling and analysis are presented. In addition, the economic effects of an interactive VR artifact for workplace and process design are simulated and tools for the implementation of immersive technologies in the workplace are generated. Overall, this contribution provides valuable design knowledge for highly immersive systems, insights on contextualization capabilities in business process management and approaches to determine the long-term economic impact of VR in organizations