Information technology is often discussed in terms of its role in business process improvement or business process redesign. Much of the literature emphasizes the role of process improvement and reengineering as a critical component to realizing benefits of IT. Davenport and Short (1990) discuss the role of information technology and business process redesign in the transformation of organizations. Davenport (1993) describes performance improvements and changes in organizational efficiencies resulting from information and communication system implementations. Information technology provides the capability of hardware and software applications and telecommunications, while business process redesign involves the analysis and design of work flows and business processes within and among organizations. They identify the following as important factors or tactics toward achieving business outcomes: using IT as a design tool, understanding generic design criteria, and creating organizational prototypes. They indicate that obtaining and maintaining management commitment is perhaps the greatest difficulty in IT-driven process redesign and that modifying structural dimensions such as function, product, and geography along process lines can aid in achieving desired outcomes.

Mechling (1994) also discusses the perception that reengineering in the public sector may not be much of a reality. He indicates that true reengineering is characterized by a fundamental redesign of work processes associated with the production of a good or service, rapid and large scale improvements in performance, and the aggressive use of supporting information technologies. Reengineering is discussed in terms of both a goal and an approach for reaching a goal and given that information technology can be used to organize work processes in substantially more efficient manners, the time is right for reengineering. He argues that organizations and societies that reengineer will be much more successful than those that do not and that reengineering, as an approach or process can take many forms.

Bashain et al. (1994) discuss the organizational conditions that influence the degree of success in business process reengineering. Sampler and Short (1994) discuss an explanatory framework based on expertise half-life and information half-life. They propose that under certain conditions, project failures are associated with a disjointedness between reengineering project objectives and the organization’s general business and information systems planning agenda. Under other conditions this decoupling can be associated with successful projects. They arrive at two observations regarding strategic assets, IT, and process reengineering. First, information technology’s capability to destroy tangible as well as intangible assets suggests a more substantial and complex role for IT in the development of an organization’s core competencies. Second, reengineering efforts that do not take into account the difference between restructuring physical assets and rethinking the flow, or characteristics of, intangible assets are incomplete. King (1995a) stresses that the role of government and shifting public-private interactions are within the realms of social and technical change that can be considered in the context of business process reengineering.

Kambil and Short (1994) discuss the need to alter both the fundamental structures of organizations and their environments, therefore shifting the focus of study of electronic integration-- the use of IT to reengineer business processes, from that of the organization to the entire business network. They indicate that the role-linkage perspective is a useful abstraction to characterize the business network and to guide research on the effects of IT on organizational structures. Earl et al. (1995) describe a framework for analysis of the relationship between business process reengineering and strategic planning. Four case studies are used to demonstrate variability in the following four domains: process, strategy, information systems, and change management and control. A taxonomy of BPR strategies is identified through the case studies suggesting a richer variety of BPR practice than had been previously documented as well as opportunities for further research.