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Performance
The performance impact of impact of BPS
business process standardization
An empirical evaluation of
the recruitment process 29
Björn Münstermann
Department of Information Systems and Services, University of Bamberg,
Bamberg, Germany
Andreas Eckhardt
Institute of Information Systems, University of Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main,
Germany, and
Tim Weitzel
Department of Information Systems and Services, University of Bamberg,
Bamberg, Germany

Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to show if business process standardization (BPS) has an
impact on business process performance and should be considered as both a valid business process
management (BPM) measure and a regular driver of process success.
Design/methodology/approach – An empirical analysis based on data from 156 firms is used to
evaluate the hypothesis that process standardization positively impacts business process time, cost,
and quality.
Findings – First, the paper proposes a model and empirical operationalization to analyze the impact
of process standardization on process performance. Second, empirical analysis shows that BPS has
a decisive impact on process performance (R 2 ¼ 61.9 percent). Precisely, there is a significant impact
on process time, cost, and most notably on quality. The results indicate that the impact is strongest in
services firms and varies subject to a firm’s strategy type.
Practical implications – The results suggest that BPS should regularly be considered a prime
action item and major tool in a firm’s BPM toolbox.
Originality/value – The paper is among the first to empirically show the vital impact of process
standardization on performance. For academics and practitioners interested in BPM and the value
impact of processes, the results suggest adding process standardization as a regular argument into
research on and management of business processes.
Keywords Business process re-engineering, Standardization, Process management, Recruitment
Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction
An important management question is how to enhance the performance of a company’s
business processes. Over the past few decades, firms have increasingly structured their Business Process Management
activities along end-to-end business processes and the “process-centric” perspective of Journal
Vol. 16 No. 1, 2010
a company’s activities became prevalent (Tallon et al., 2000; Barua et al., 1995; pp. 29-56
Kettinger et al., 1997; Skrinjar et al., 2008; Goldkuhl and Lind, 2008). One possible level q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1463-7154
to increase the performance of a given business process is “process standardization.” DOI 10.1108/14637151011017930
BPMJ Accordingly, process standardization is receiving increased academic and practitioner
16,1 attention. Venkatesh (2006), for example, identifies “process standardization” as one
of three “broad future research directions.” An impressive number of recently
published papers on process standardization shows the associated relevance
(Sánchez-Rodrı́guez et al., 2006; Bala and Venkatesh, 2007; Wuellenweber and
Weitzel, 2007; von Stetten et al., 2008; Muenstermann and Weitzel, 2008).
30 From a practitioner perspective, attention is largely aimed at huge cost-saving
opportunities through process standardization – as a recent Computer Weekly headline
(Hadfield, 2007) impressively illustrates:
BP Retail expects to save up to £600 m over the next few years by standardizing business
processes and IT systems at all of its petrol stations around the world.
But besides cost savings, process standardization as a tool of business process
management (BPM) can offer further value. Swaminathan (2001) demonstrates “better
operative process performance through business process standardization” and argues
further that “process standardization provides immense benefits.” Ramakumar and
Cooper (2004) declare that “process standardization proves profitable” while
Wuellenweber et al. (2008) suggest that process standardization also increases
transparency and controllability.
Unfortunately to date and to our best knowledge, no stringent empirical exploration
of the impact of process standardization on process performance exists. Therefore, in
this paper, we aim at answering the research question:
RQ. What is the impact of process standardization on process performance?
We suggest that a better understanding of the impact of process standardization
on process performance might benefit business process research, standardization
research, and BPM practice alike by providing a new perspective on how and why
particular process standards are developed and used (de Vries, 1999) with the eventual
goal to theoretically link research on business process optimization to business value
research (Melville et al., 2004; Balasubramanian and Gupta, 2005).
To explore the relationship between process standardization and process
performance and to evaluate if this research area warrants more extensive research,
we develop (Section 2) and empirically evaluate (Section 3) a model of the impact of
process standardization on process performance using data from 156 firms. The paper
closes with a discussion of the results, potential limitations and possible areas of further
research (Section 4).

2. Research model
2.1 Process standardization
Starting with a definition of “business process” as the object to be standardized, we
follow one of the most common definitions given by Davenport and Short (1990). They
define “business process” as a “set of logically related tasks performed to achieve a
defined business outcome.”
It is, to a considerable degree, more difficult to approach “standard,”, respectively,
“standardization.” The probably most common definition has been given by ISO
(1996):
 Standards are documents, established by consensus and approved by a recognized body that Performance
provides, for common and repeated use, rules, guidelines or characteristics for activities or
their results, aimed at the achievement of the optimum degree of order in a given context. impact of BPS
Other authors like de Vries (2006) go in even more detail when defining “standard”
and “standardization.” Lyytinen and King (2006) highlight the importance of
standardization but complain about an alarming lack of research on it:
31
Despite the importance of standardization, the IS field has not pursued research on it
vigorously. Scholarly discussions are rare, and strong contributions are lacking. [. . .] Notably
absent are studies of standardization concepts, processes, the impact of ICT standards on
industrial coordination and strategy, or the economics of ICT standards.
Combining the definitions of “business process” and “standard” and trying to approach
“process standardization” now – again as before – several authors diagnose a lack of
fitting literature: von Stetten et al. (2008) point out, that:
[. . .] there is not much relevant literature to be found. Although some ideas can be borrowed
from the rich business process improvement literature from the nineties, only a very limited
number of papers exist treating “business process standardization” solely.
Ungan (2006) points out that “despite its great attractiveness, academics’ and
practitioners’ work on process standardization is conspicuously absent.”
The work of Muenstermann and Weitzel (2008) in contrast provides a first
proposal of how to define a measurement construct for “process standardization.”
Wuellenweber et al. (2008) define “the objective of [process] standardization” as “to make
process activities transparent and achieve uniformity of process activities across the
value chain and across firm boundaries.” Shaw et al. (2007) further define “process
standardization as a means to change business processes from where they are to a
standard business process” and “focus on a meta process: the process of changing a
process.”
For this paper, we restrict our research to a purely inner-organizational
understanding of process standardization and aim at investigating the effect of
inner-organizational process standardization on process performance. For this purpose,
we define “process standardization” as the unification of variants of a given business
process by aligning the variants against an archetype process. The archetype process
against which the process variants are aligned can either be created or selected within
the focal firm or be based on/adopted from an existing external reference/best in class
process[1].

2.2 Basic model: impact of process standardization on process performance

Our main research goal is to determine whether process performance is positively
affected by process standardization. As indicated, we see several reasons why this is a
worthwhile topic.
First, there is the frequently uttered proposition particularly in practitioner
communities that standardized processes will show better process performance (Fomin
and Lyytinen, 2000; Ramakumar and Cooper, 2004; Swaminathan, 2001). Second,
process standardization has a high potential to increase process flexibility and thereby
allows companies to react more flexibly and innovatively to changes (van Wessel et al.,
2006; Muenstermann and Weitzel, 2008), or as Ross (2003) puts it to “gain a platform
BPMJ positioned for innovation.” And third, there is some empirical indication that
16,1 standardized processes can significantly increase a company’s readiness to outsource
business processes (Wuellenweber et al., 2008) or to merge with or buy other companies.
Yet, only little is empirically known about the impact of process standardization on
process performance and speaking more generally on its business value contribution.
Therefore, the goal of this paper is to fill this research gap by first developing a
32 relevant and measurable research model around process standardization and to then
empirically evaluate the model.
Drawing mainly on production and supply-chain literature (de Toni and Panizzolo,
1993; Jayaram and Vickery, 1998; Manrodt and Vitasek, 2004; Phelps, 2006;
Wuellenweber et al., 2008), one finds that standardization of business processes
pursues diverse objectives (improving operational performance, reducing costs,
facilitating communication, and profiting from expert knowledge).
Aiming at identifying the value of process standardization, Hesser et al. (2006), give
an impressively substantial list of advantages to companies and their customers.
Sánchez-Rodrı́guez et al. (2006) assert – based on Jayaram and Vickery (1998) – that
standardization of purchasing procedures “has a significant positive effect on both
purchasing and business performance.” Balasubramanian and Gupta (2005) develop an
approach that allows “estimating business process performance ex ante using
‘structural metrics’.” Muenstermann and Weitzel (2008) summarize the potential
benefit of process standardization in their literature review of process standards as
shown in Table I.

Benefit Description

Improved process performance Reduced end-to-end time (cycle-time)

Reduced process costs
Improved process quality
Improved customer confidence Standardized processes reduce probability for
process-driven mistakes
Standardized processes allow to cope with
continuously increasing process complexity
Consequently, the overall quality and thereby
customer confidence improves
Enhanced readiness To outsource business processes
To merge with or buy other companies
To react to regulatory changes
To react to changing compliance needs
To react to market and external change and
trends by increased process flexibility
Simplified and increased communication/ Make process activities transparent
transparency/measurability Allow for benchmarking due to common key
performance indicators
Employees can move more easily from one
location to another or one product to another due
to standardized processes
Simplified communication among departments
Table I. and locations within organizations
Exemplary benefit of
process standardization Source: Based on Muenstermann and Weitzel (2008)
Within this paper, we propose to focus on analyzing the impact of process Performance
standardization on process performance. Among the benefits of process standardization impact of BPS
(as shown in Table I), “process performance” is the benefit dimension, which can easily
be measured quantitatively. Earlier research allowed us to develop and evolutionarily
refine a measurement model to now have a tested and therefore mature process
performance construct at our disposal.
Encouraged by the referred research results and the preceding arguments, we posit 33
(Figure 1):
H1 0 . Process standardization is positively associated with process performance.

2.3 Extended model: impact of process standardization on process time, cost, and quality
To refine the consideration of the impact of process standardization on process
performance, we expand the dependent variable process performance along the more
detailed process performance success dimensions process time, cost, and quality
following authors like Wagner (2006) or Mooney et al. (1996)[2]. This perspective leads
us to three hypotheses (H1-H3) in Table II.
Figure 2 shows the research model resulting corresponding to H1-H3 which are
elaborated in the following.
2.3.1 Positive effect of process standardization on business process time. We expect a
positive effect of process standardization on business process time where business
process time indicates the total time elapsed to produce a product or to deliver a
service, respectively, along the process (sub)-activities from the beginning to the end
of the process.
The first argument to theoretically derive the positive effect of process
standardization on business process time is that a standardized business process is
simpler to perform or operate than a non-standardized business process and
consequently can be operated with less cycle time. In a first step process,
standardization makes it simpler to perform a given business process by reducing the
overall process diversity/variance (Hesser et al., 2006; Lillrank and Liukko, 2004)

Process H1′ (+) Process

standardization performance

Note: Basic research model for the impact of process

Figure 1.
standardization on process performance

Hypothesis Section

H1. Process standardization is positively associated with business process time,

i.e. reduces process time 2.3.1
H2. Process standardization is positively associated with business process cost,
i.e. reduces process cost 2.3.2 Table II.
H3. Process standardization is positively associated with business process quality, Hypotheses in extended
i.e. increases process quality 2.3.3 research model
BPMJ
16,1
Process time
H1 (+)

34
Process H2 (+)
Process cost
standardization

Figure 2.
Extended research model H3 (+)
for the impact of process
Process quality
standardization on process
time, cost, and quality

and – as a consequence of the standardization activities – increasing both the

availability of implicit and explicit process knowledge (Bandow et al., 2008; Engelhardt
et al., 2004) and the overall process transparency (Wuellenweber et al., 2008). In a
second step, employees disposing of more process knowledge and performing more
uniform process-(sub)-activities than before process standardization activities are able
to afterwards reduce cycle time. In short, Jayaram and Vickery (1998) elementarily
argue that process standardization simplifies the activities and sub-activities of a given
business process, and thereby engenders “cycle time reduction” directly.
A second argument, according to Jayaram and Vickery (1998), is that
“standardization can also create focused expertise with materials and processes to a
point where it is much easier to identify sources of delay, unnecessary steps and
opportunities for parallelism.” Drawing on this, we conclude that the more sources of
delay are found, the more unnecessary process steps are eliminated and the more
opportunities for parallelism are used within a given business process, the more process
standardization contributes to reduce business process time.
A third argument combines findings of Ungan and Siha and Saad. In his
article, “Standardization through process documentation,” Ungan (2006) points out that
“process documents must be created to standardize a process,”, respectively, that
they “are important tools to standardize a process.” In their overview of empirical
assessments of process improvement activities, Siha and Saad (2008) provide six
case studies in which extensive process documentation led to significant cycle
time reductions. Hence, documenting processes – as an essential part of process
standardization – leads to significant cycle time reductions and thus supports the
hypothesis of a positive effect of process standardization on business process time.
Further, in a supply-chain context using an empirical study of 57 top-tier suppliers
to the North American automotive industry, Jayaram et al. (2000) examined the direct
and complementary effects of information system infrastructure and process
improvements on time-based performance. They found that among several process
improvement variables process standardization is “the most influential enabler
affecting delivery-speed.” This again supports our hypothesis of a positive effect of
process standardization on business process time.
 Finally, investigating different possibilities to improve “a company’s operational Performance
competitive advantage,” Manrodt and Vitasek (2004) focus on “internal global process impact of BPS
management and standardization.” They provide an in-depth case-study tackling the
“process management of a global third party provider” which conducted a “supply chain
conditioning and execution project.” Within this project, a “common methodology that
fosters an environment for collaboration and process standardization” was created.
When it comes to quantifying the results of the mentioned project Manrodt and Vitasek 35
observe an impressive “61% reduction in order turnaround time.” Inferring from their
findings, we again hypothesize that process standardization directly leads to a reduction
of business process time.
These arguments (summarized in Table III) lead to H1:
H1. Process standardization is positively associated with business process time,
i.e. reduces process time.
2.3.2 Positive effect of process standardization on business process cost. We expect a
positive effect of process standardization on business process cost, where business
process cost indicates the cost assigned to a business process based on the sum of the
cost of the (sub)-activities that compose the process.
The first and probably most generic argument to derive the positive effect of
process standardization on business process cost is that process standardization leads

Reference Key finding

Jayaram and Vickery (1998) “Clearly, standardization simplifies, thus engendering cycle time
reduction”
“Standardization can also create focused expertise with materials and
processes to a point where it is much easier to identify sources of delay,
unnecessary steps and opportunities for parallelism”
Ungan (2006) and Siha and Process documentation is an essential part of process standardization
Saad (2008) since “process documents must be created to standardize a process”
and therefore are “important tools to standardize a process”
Providing six case studies Siha and Saad deduce significant process
cycle time reductions from extensive process documentation
Consequently, process standardization via its part process
documentation leads to significant cycle time reductions
Jayaram et al. (2000) “Process improvement also directly influenced supply-chain time
performance”
“Each of the three process improvement variables also influenced
some aspect of supply-chain time-based performance. Standardization
being the most influential enabler affecting delivery speed and
responsiveness to customer’s performance”
“Specifically, the IT factor along with process improvement variables
(standardization and concurrent engineering) had a complementary
and significant positive influence on time-based performance”
Manrodt and Vitasek (2004) “Employees consistently echoed the belief that the business had
created a common methodology that fosters an environment for
collaboration and process standardization. Results of this effort were
identified in several areas. [. . .] Table III.
For instance [. . .] Overview of literature
61% reduction in order turnaround time” supporting H1
BPMJ to operational efficiency or improved operational performance, which then leads to
16,1 reduced process cost.
Beimborn et al. (2009) summarize the underlying reasons saying that “process
standardization within a firm can improve operational performance and reduce
processing costs by eliminating errors, by achieving economies of scale, and by
facilitating communication.”
36 Looking into the drivers that lead to reduce business process cost when performing
process standardization in more detail, Wuellenweber et al. (2008) add “decreasing
process errors, facilitating communication, or just profiting from expert knowledge” as
contributing drivers.
With regard to a company’s procurement process as Sánchez-Rodrı́guez et al. (2006)
cite Bennett (1982), it was clear already that “standardization of purchasing procedures
could also be a potential point of cost savings for companies.” Sánchez-Rodrı́guez et al.
empirically substantiate Bennett’s supposition and find a positive effect of
standardization in purchasing over purchasing performance on production cost.
Process standardization facilitates communication about how the business as a whole
and subdivided into its business processes operates (Davenport, 2005; Ramakumar and
Cooper, 2004). The easier, it is to communicate about the ways in which a business as a
whole and subdivided into its processes works, the easier it is for the working employees
to acquire a profound understanding of the business process at hand. Following the
argumentation of Manrodt and Vitasek (2004), “a greater understanding of how benefits
were delivered to the customer” leads “to overall corporate savings by reducing waste
and redundancy”. We thus expect process standardization to reduce business process
cost due to the fact that it first leads to a profound understanding of the business process,
which then implies cost reductions.
Another argument that contributes to H1 is that process standardization can enable
headcount reductions. For example, van Wessel et al. (2006) investigate the “effects of
IS standardization on business process performance” using a human resource (HR)
information systems (IS) case study in which HR processes are standardized. They find
significantly reduced process cost due to the possibility to decrease the number of
employees after having standardized the HR process.
Similarly but focusing on cost-reduction potential on the information technology
(IT) side of business processes, van Wessel et al. (2006) reason that process
standardization gives rise to the “decommissioning of legacy HR systems” which in
most cases goes along with significant cost reductions.
Within the same in-depth case study as cited in the previous section (Section 2.3.1)
Manrodt and Vitasek (2004) provide evidence for significant business process cost
reductions caused by a 64 percent reduction in working capital and 35 percent
reduction in inventory cost.
Considering the three previous arguments in unison, we hypothesize that process
standardization leads to reduced business process cost by the possibility to reduce the
number of employees necessary to operate the standardized process, by the possibility
to decommission legacy IT systems that the standardized process does not require
anymore as well as by reducing working capital and inventory cost made possible by
having standardized the business process.
Drawing on the statistical theory of variation (STV) developed by Shewhart (1931)
and expanded by Deming (1986), one finds another argument contributory
to the generation of this section’s hypothesis. Following the STV, each business Performance
process exhibits variation, which leads to deviation from targets and thereby can be impact of BPS
associated with a loss function, which quantifies the costs necessary to reduce the
variation. The more intensive the variation observed the higher the costs to reduce it.
In this regard, understanding process standardization as a means to reduce variation
or to at least reduce the degree of variation emerging, we hypothesize that process
standardization has a positive effect on business process cost. 37
Summing up all the preceding arguments, we hypothesize H2 (as summarized in
Table IV):
H2. Process standardization is positively associated with business process cost,
i.e. reduces process cost.
2.3.3 Positive effect of process standardization on business process quality. We propose
a positive effect of process standardization on business process quality, where
business process quality indicates the quality of the products (in manufacturing

Reference Key finding

Beimborn et al. (2009) “Process standardization within a firm can improve operational
performance and reduce processing costs by eliminating errors, by
achieving economies of scale, and by facilitating communication”
Wuellenweber et al. (2008) “Standardization of business processes aims at improving operational
performance and reducing costs by decreasing process errors, facilitating
communication, or just profiting from expert knowledge”
Sánchez-Rodrı́guez et al. Empirical substantiation of the positive effect of standardization in
(2006) purchasing over purchasing performance on production cost
Manrodt and Vitasek “First, a greater understanding of how benefits were delivered to the
(2004) customer was identified. This led to overall corporate savings by reducing
waste and redundancy”
“For instance [. . .]
64% reduction in working capital
35% reduction in inventory costs”
van Wessel et al. (2006) Investigating the “effects of IS standardization on business process
performance” using a HR IS case study in which HR processes are
standardized van Wessel et al. find “reduced costs” because of a “reduction
in HR staff” and “decommissioning of legacy HR systems”
Davenport et al. (2004) In the IT-driven process standardization situation where indeed the initial
implementation of a new enterprise system requires a significant
investment, the mid- to long-term business case still promises to be
positive due to continuously refined, optimized and standardized
processes (enabled by the enterprise systems implementation)
Lillrank and Liukko “The statistical theory of variation, developed by Shewhart [(Shewhart,
(2004) 1931)] and expanded and popularized by Deming [(Deming, 1986)], is
based on the insights that all processes exhibit variation, variation leads
to deviation from targets and is the primary cause of poor quality,
variation is associated with a loss function: when an actual manufacturing
step produces a value that deviates from the target, costs in terms of
rejection or trouble later in the process are incurred.” Table IV.
Consequently, standardization seen as reducing variation reduces process Overview of literature
cost supporting H2
BPMJ industries), respectively, the quality of services (in service delivering industries) that
16,1 are produced by the business process at hand. Business process quality can, for example,
be measured as the value of percentage defective or of defects per 100 products,
respectively, services produced by the business process at hand.
Similar to the first argument in the previous section (Section 2.3.2), the first and
probably most generic argument to derive the positive effect of process standardization
38 on business process quality is that process standardization leads to operational
excellence or improved operational performance, which then directly leads to higher
business process quality.
Ramakumar and Cooper (2004) investigate how to ensure “near defect-free
products” and high-overall process quality in times of globalization and increasingly
complex value chains, where companies “may have more than 100 operating plants
and design locations.” They recommend the implementation of a centralized quality
management, which according to their findings can be established by:
.
standardizing the respective processes; and
.
implementing consistent corporate-wide visible key quality metrics.

In their eyes, “to achieve operational excellence [. . .] in a global value chain process
standardization is critical.” Hence, process standardization is an essential measure to
enhance both process and product quality.
Looking into the drivers that lead to higher business process quality when
performing process standardization in more detail, van Wessel et al. (2006) in the same
HR IS case study, again list “consistent and timely management reporting” and
“improved HR data” as contributing drivers. According to them, the better the
management of an organization is informed about a business process using improved
data about the business process’ characteristics, the more it is able to take the right
actions at the right time and thereby improving business process quality. Therefore, we
hypothesize that process standardization leads to higher business process quality.
Further, Kondo (2000) emphasizes:
[. . .] the necessity and importance of standardization [. . .] of work itself [. . .] in order to ensure
the product and service quality by documenting the work flow, issuing the work standards as
to the means and methods and working in accordance with the standards,
and thereby supports the reasonableness of our hypothesis.
Finally, referring to the theory of statistical variation again (Section 2.3.2), Lillrank
and Liukko (2004) formulate that “variation leads to deviation from targets and is
the primary cause of poor quality.” Hence, understanding process standardization
as in the previous section as a means to reduce process variation, we expect process
standardization to positively affect business process quality.
Synthesizing the preceding arguments, we hypothesize H3 (as summarized in
Table V):
H3. Process standardization is positively associated with business process
quality, i.e. increases process quality.
The following section introduces the particular process observed and outlines its
adequacy to analyze the impact of business process standardization (BPS) on process
performance determinants.
 Performance
References Key finding
impact of BPS
Ramakumar and Cooper Implementation of centralized quality management of which process
(2004) standardization is one out of two key ingredients to enhance process and
product quality
“To achieve operational excellence [. . .] in a global value chain process
standardization is critical” 39
“enforce process standardization with the ultimate goal of producing
near defect-free products”
van Wessel et al. (2006) Investigating the “effects of IS standardization on business process
performance” using a HR IS case study in which HR processes are
standardized van Wessel et al. find “improved quality” because of
“consistent and timely management reporting” and “improved HR data”
Kondo (2000) “The coming twenty-first century is foreseen as the century of quality”
“The necessity and importance of standardization [. . .] of work itself have
been emphasized in order to ensure the product and service quality by
documenting the work flow, issuing the work standards as to the means
and methods and working in accordance with the standards”
Lillrank and Liukko “The statistical theory of variation, developed by Shewhart [(Shewhart,
(2004) 1931)] and expanded and popularized by Deming [(Deming, 1986)], is
based on the insights that all processes exhibit variation, variation leads
to deviation from targets and is the primary cause of poor quality,
variation is associated with a loss function: when an actual manufacturing
step produces a value that deviates from the target, costs in terms of
rejection or trouble later in the process are incurred” Table V.
Consequently, standardization seen as reducing variation increases Overview of literature
process quality supporting H3

2.4 The recruiting process

We chose the corporate recruiting process as research object to examine the influence
of process standardization on process performance. This process was chosen for a
number of reasons.
The general importance of recruiting is pointed out by Luftman et al. (2006) who
named recruiting as a top issue for executives. Moreover, the renewed increasing
demand for (IT) workers turns out not to be a local phenomenon, but global in its scope
and implications (Riemenschneider et al., 2008). The rising importance of the recruiting
process is also recognized in practice, since more and more global operating companies
started to standardize their worldwide staffing processes recently (Eckhardt et al., 2008).
According to Kim and Won, the recruiting process is known to be the most time
and costs consuming process among all HR processes. Also, companies increasingly
recognize the importance of coordination among the numerous different tasks
in staff recruitment (Kim and Won, 2007). Prior research – as explained in the
following paragraphs – also showed that the recruiting process is anything but a
straightforward process due to the fact that both parties in the recruiting process
corporate recruiters and applying candidates are highly complex individuals who act in
numerous different patterns.
Keim and Weitzel (2006) showed that applicants – particularly in the IT industry –
form highly diversified groups with varying individual values, career objectives and
expectations who contact the hiring companies via different media and apply for jobs
BPMJ using different forms of application. Especially, the diverse preferences for particular
16,1 application forms split the applicants in different groups (Eckhardt et al., 2007).
To respond to the needs of these different groups of applicants, most companies
established significantly differing recruiting process variants within their recruiting
process. A higher number of variants leads to higher overall process complexity. Hence,
among the secondary processes, the recruiting process is one of the most complex
40 processes.
Within companies, recruiters do not act in standardized patterns. Recent research
points out that recruiters’ behaviour to adopt specific IS – and consequently at least
partly standardize their recruiting activities, e.g. how to search for adequate candidates
– differs a lot. Recommendations and prior experiences of their workplace referents as
well as their individual attitude were identified as significant determinants for their
particular behaviour. Equal or standardized behavioural patterns in this field are
almost non-existent (Eckhardt et al., 2009a). Hence, the recruiting process is highly
unstandardized in a lot of companies and, therefore, interesting and particularly
suitable for our research purpose.
Especially, in secondary or support processes (like staff recruitment) within the
corporate value chain (Porter, 1985), the current degree of unification differs a lot across
corporations and industries. While mainly in the late 1990s, a great deal of attention
has been concentrated on standardizing primary processes, secondary processes have
been rather neglected. Some firms have already recognized the importance of secondary
processes as basis and foundation to foster primary processes (Porter, 2008) while
others did not (Eckhardt et al., 2008). As a consequence, we expect to find a more
significant difference in the degree of standardization of secondary processes than of
primary processes and therefore chose the recruiting process as an example of a
secondary process as our research object.
First, qualitative research approaches already observed a positive impact of
process standardization on business process performance in the recruiting process
(von Stetten et al., 2008). This impact could be achieved in all steps of the recruiting
process. We chose the recruiting process description of Faerber et al. (2003) for our
research as shown in Figure 3. For further descriptions of recruiting process design, see
Breaugh and Starke (2000) or Lee (2007).
To analyze and differentiate the influence of process standardization on business
process performance in the recruiting process, we take the common performance
dimensions used in HR research (von Stetten et al., 2008; Laumer et al., 2008;
Eckhardt et al., 2009b). The dimensions can be described as follows:
.
Time-to-hire. The overall time-to-hire measures the process time between the
identification of a vacancy and the final hire of an employee. There can be
performance measures related to the time it takes to achieve specific steps as
candidate attraction or applicant tracking (e.g. the complete time-to-hire or
selected parts of it as, e.g. the time period between vacancy identification and job
hosting) as shown in Figure 3.
.
Cost-per-hire. Equivalent to process time the overall cost-per-hire can be
quantified as average cost per each hire. They also include the cost for candidate
attraction such as expenses for job postings in online job boards or newspapers.
Additional costs in applicant tracking appear for the internal handling of
 HR
Performance
Recruiting process
impact of BPS
Employer Candidate Applicant Pre-
Selection Hire
branding attraction tracking selection

Sales
41
Procurement Operations Logistics Service
marketing

IT

Administration

Finance
Figure 3.
The recruiting process
Source: We adopted Porter's (1985) value chain model for our design

incoming applications. The use of integrated IS for staff recruitment changes the
regular communication with applicants and offers a potential for cost reduction.
.
Recruiting process quality. So far, there is no definite measure for process quality
in staff recruitment. Therefore, current approaches on recruiting process
performance (von Stetten et al., 2008; Laumer et al., 2008; Eckhardt et al., 2009b)
integrate measures as applicants’ quality or the quality of applicants’ data in
their evaluations. Relational quality measures like the degree of information for
the operating departments and candidates’ satisfaction with the provided
information are also included within the evaluation of recruiting process quality.

3. Methodology
3.1 Constructs and data
The theoretical framework (Figure 1 for the basic research model and Figure 2 for
the extended research model) has been operationalized and transferred into structural
equation models. In the following, the measurement and structural models are
evaluated. The Appendix offers additional detailed data.
3.1.1 Construct operationalization. All latent variables in our research models are
represented by a set of at least four reflective indicators. We measured all constructs on
a seven-point Likert scale using scales from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree.” All
but one constructs are modelled as first order constructs – only the process
performance construct in the basic research model has been modelled as a second order
construct. The operationalization of our constructs is presented in Table AVI in the
Appendix.
Content validity refers to the extent to which measures reflect the intended
meaning of a construct (Zhu and Kraemer, 2002). A researcher needs to corroborate
that the results measured represent the content of the related construct and not an
unreasonable view (Vinzi et al., 2003; Nunnally and Bernstein, 1994; Cronbach, 1971). A
major requirement to ensure content validity is a very precise definition of the content
represented by the constructs.
BPMJ We ensured content validity by deriving the indicators used from existing
16,1 constructs where possible and discussing them in detail with several experts in the HR
departments of German companies (Churchill, 1979). Furthermore, we evaluated the
content of the constructs used with senior executives and consultants of one of the
world’s largest job board.
The original constructs in our survey were questioned in German, so we
42 operationalized our constructs in this version using the back-translation method
(Brislin, 1970).
3.1.2 Data collection procedure. In January 2006, we sent out our questionnaire
to executives responsible for the recruiting process in Germany’s Fortune
1000 companies that all had individually been contacted by phone before. We chose
the beginning of a year for our data collection to ensure an equal context and measurable
relation for the respondents regarding the current state of process standardization
and process performance within their corporation. Overall, 156 usable questionnaires
were returned (response rate 15.6 percent). None of the data sets had more than
50 percent of missing values for the analyses in this section, so all 156 data sets could
be used for model validation.

3.2 Analyses
Based on the standard procedure of Chin (1998, 2000), Bagozzi and Yi (1988) and
Gefen et al. (2000) to measure a structural equation model, we first perform a partial
least squares (PLS) analysis and then a t-test for significance of the path coefficients.
We have used SmartPLS (Ringle et al., 2005) in the version SmartPLS 2.0 M3 for
analysis.
3.2.1 Measurement model (of the extended research model)[3]. According to Hulland
(1999), the adequacy of a measurement model can be assessed by looking at:
.
individual indicator reliabilities;
.
the convergent validity; and
.
discriminant validity.
Individual indicator reliabilities deal with the statistical fit between an indicator and its
corresponding latent variable. All indicator loadings are significant at the 0.001 level
and above the recommended 0.7 parameter value (Carmines and Zeller, 1979; Fornell
and Larcker, 1981). All indicator loadings under 0.5 parameter value were excluded
beforehand (Hulland, 1999) and as cross-loadings in Table AV (in the Appendix) show
all indicators have the highest correlation with their respective construct. Significance
tests were conducted using the bootstrap routine with 200 samples (Chin, 2000).
Convergent validity refers to the internal consistency of a set of indicators and is
analyzed by calculating the average variance extracted (AVE) and the composite
reliability (CR). In our case, all AVEs are over the recommended threshold of 0.5 and all
CRs are above the recommended threshold of 0.6 (Bagozzi and Yi, 1988). Another
test-option that most notably has formerly been used is Cronbach’s alpha (CA). Values
close to 1.0 indicate great reliability (Gefen et al., 2000) and all our values fulfill this
criterion.
Discriminant validity is concerned with whether a construct shares more variance
with its indicators than it shares with other constructs in a model (Hulland, 1999). To
test discriminant validity, Fornell and Larcker (1981) demand that the AVE should be
greater than the variance shared between the construct and other constructs in the Performance
model. According to Hulland (1999): impact of BPS
[. . .] this can be demonstrated in a correlation matrix which includes the correlations between
different constructs in the lower left off-diagonal [. . .] and the square roots of the [AVEs]
along the diagonal. For adequate discriminant validity, the diagonal elements should be
significantly greater than the off-diagonal elements in the corresponding rows and columns.
43
In our case, this criterion holds as shown in Table AIV in the Appendix. In addition,
the loadings of the reflective indicators in our research model are higher for the
corresponding constructs than for any other, so discriminant validity is high.
Table VI provides an overview of the statistics of CA, AVE, and CR for the extended
measurement model. Overall, all values are over the recommended thresholds.
3.2.2 Structural model. We first evaluate the basic model of Figure 1. The quality
of the structural model is determined by the two values R 2 and the related
path coefficients. The squared multiple correlations (R 2) express the proportion of
the variance of the endogenous variable process performance that is explained by the
exogenous variable process standardization. The results indicate that 61.9 percent
(R 2 ¼ 0.619) of the overall variance for process performance could be explained by
process standardization. The path coefficient for the impact of process standardization
on process performance amounts to 0.787 (compare Figure 4). The t-test for significance
of the path coefficient by conducting the bootstrapping routine with 200 samples
(Chin, 2000) yields a highly significant result.
The evaluation of the structural model shows a significant impact of process
standardization on process performance. Hence, H1 0 is supported and encourages
to look at the positive effect of process standardization on process performance in
more detail.
Looking at the extended model of Figure 2, the squared multiple correlations (R 2)
show that 38.9 percent (R 2 ¼ 0.389) of the proportional variance for business process
time, 30.5 percent (R 2 ¼ 0.305) of the proportional variance for business process cost
and almost two-thirds (R 2 ¼ 0.626) of the proportional variance for business process

Table VI.
CA AVE CR Quality criteria for
the extended research
Process time 0.975400 0.890907 0.979986 model for the impact of
Process cost 0.948332 0.765775 0.957872 process standardization
Process quality 0.925235 0.692387 0.940058 on process time, cost, and
Process standardization 0.951224 0.879277 0.966459 quality

Figure 4.
0.787 Process Evalution of the basic
Process
performance research model for the
standardization t = 4.643*** 2
R =0.619 impact of process
standardization on process
performance
Notes: *p < 0.010; **p < 0.005; ***p < 0.001
BPMJ quality are represented by the antecedent process standardization (compare Figure 5).
16,1 In order to analyze the significance of path coefficients in our research model, we
evaluated the t-values. Significance tests were conducted using the bootstrap routine
with 200 samples (Chin, 2000). The following figure now shows the evaluation of our
structural model including the significance level of the path coefficients.
As the empirical analysis shows (Figure 5), all H1-H3 are supported.
44
4. Conclusions
4.1 Key findings and contribution
First, this paper proposes a theoretical research model and empirical operationalization
to analyze the impact of process standardization on process performance – illustrated
using the corporate staff recruiting process. Second, the results are among the first
to systematically and empirically show that there is a significant positive impact of
process standardization on process performance.
What are the managerial implications? An important finding is the empirical
confirmation of the positive effect of standardization on process performance and
thereby its potential as part of a BPM approach that strives for continuous improvement.
The possible impacts of process standardization make it a relevant measure for business
process reengineering and controlling. Managers can also use the results as supporting
rationale demonstrating the standardization impact expected before deciding to undergo
a standardization project. Following the line of reasoning of Sánchez-Rodrı́guez et al.
(2006), we can say that:
[. . .] in an economic environment where businesses are constantly attempting to identify
means to obtain incremental improvements and enhance the company’s bottom line,
managers can use this study as evidence that standardization of, [processes has a positive
effect on process performance] and, thereby, justify its implementation.
Also, and in line with most management and IS research, a first glimpse of the role of
strategy type and industry sector show (Section 4.2) that standardization is no silver

Process time
0.623 R2 = 0.389
t = 3.897***

Process 0.552 Process cost

standardization t = 3.940*** R2 = 0.305

0.791
Figure 5.
t = 5.211***
Evaluation of the extended Process quality
research model for the R2 = 0.626
impact of process
standardization on process
time, cost, and quality
Notes: *p < 0.010; **p < 0.005; ***p < 0.001
bullet for process improvements but that, as so often, it depends on factors including Performance
firm strategy and industry. impact of BPS
4.2 A first glimpse of the role of strategy type and industry sector
As a main contribution of this paper, it could be shown that there is a significant
impact of process standardization on process performance in general and on process
time, cost, and quality in particular. In this context, one might look at differences in the 45
value compositions amongst the three performance dimensions time, cost, and quality
subject to firm strategy, industry sectors, or firm size (large-scale versus small and
medium enterprises).
To do a first step in this direction, we divide our overall data sample and evaluate it
for companies of a specific strategy type (prospector versus analyzer versus defender)
and also industrial vs services firms[4].
We created two sub-samples based on the demographic data the firms provided
within the survey. Unlike the overall sample, these contained a number of data sets
with missing values so these data sets are excluded from the respective sample as seen
in Table VII.
4.2.1 The role of strategy type. Miles and Snow (1978) showed the profound impact
of business strategy for firm performance, other authors stress that different types of
business strategy are associated with different kinds of IS (Sabherwal and Chan, 2001)
and explain differences in information management sophistication (Gupta et al., 1997).
We draw on Miles and Snow (1978) and use three types of business strategy:
prospector, analyzer, and defender. Prospectors follow a first-mover strategy,
analyzers are fast followers that tend to prefer a “second-but-better” strategy while
defenders are conservative late followers (DeSarbo et al., 2005).
The strategy type of a corporation seems to influence the overall impact of process
standardization. We examined this by looking at companies’ behaviors to introduce
and implement a new technology. Therefore, we clustered our sample in three different
groups. The largest group (n ¼ 75) contains the enterprises, who regard themselves to
be always among the first to implement new technologies, products, and processes
(prospectors). The second group (n ¼ 45) represents the analyzers who track the
behavior of competitors first and follow them rapidly if deemed advantageous. Third,
the defenders are the smallest group with just 23 answers. This group only implements
new technologies, products, and processes, if they have shown a permanent added
value at their competitors.
Data analysis reveals substantial differences among the three groups. For
prospectors, only the impact of process standardization on business process quality is

Sub-sample Description Sample size (n)

Strategy Prospector 75
Analyzer 45
Defender 23
Industry Industrial sector 59 Table VII.
Services sector 94 Sub-samples
BPMJ significant. For analyzers, all three paths are significant, in contrast to no significant
16,1 relations among laggards, which is likely due to the small sample size (Figure 6).
4.2.2 The role of industry sector. As researchers increasingly emphasize the role of
industry (Chiasson and Davidson, 2005), our second sub-sample extracted from the
overall data sample compares two different industry sectors; industrial corporations
and corporations of the service industry. Altogether, 59 industrial corporations and
46 94 corporations of the service industry could be observed. The results reveal a
major difference between the two groups. While the relationship between
process standardization and the performance determinants is weak or nonexistent for
industry corporations, it is highly significant for all three dimensions in services
industry firms while both samples are large enough for meaningful calculation
(Chin, 2000). The path coefficients and the R 2-values for both groups are shown
in Figure 7.

4.3 Limitations
As with any work in a new field of research, relevant literature to build on is scarce.
Following Wuellenweber et al. (2008), we accentuate that “in standardization research
[. . .] determining the value of a standard has remained an open issue for decades.
Looking at process standards, things seem to be even worse.” Unfortunately, the
operationalization of “business process standard” used in this paper could
consequently not build on earlier work too much. While this paper could draw on
an earlier process standardization construct (Muenstermann and Weitzel, 2008), future
research should improve the operationalization.
It is important to note that we have only discussed one process to examine the
influence of process standardization. As this study provides support for a significant
influence of process standardization on process performance, it might represent a single
example for staff recruitment. Although the process observed has carefully been chosen

(1) Prospector (n = 75)

(2) Analyzer (n = 45)
(3) Defender (n = 23) Process time
(1) R2 = 0.175
(2) R2 = 0.998
(1) 0.419 (3) R2 = 0.145
(2) 0.999***
(3) 0.381

(1) 0.684 Process cost

Process (2) 0.685*** (1) R2 = 0.468
standardization (3) 0.286 (2) R2 = 0.469
(3) R2 = 0.082

(1) 0.810**
(2) 0.975*** Process quality
(3) –0.454 (1) R2 = 0.656
(2) R2 = 0.469
Figure 6. (3) R2 = 0.206
Structural models –
strategy type
Notes: *p < 0.010; **p < 0.005; ***p < 0.001
 (1) Industrial (n = 59) Performance
(2) Services (n = 94) Process time impact of BPS
(1) R2 = 0.008
(1) 0.088 (2) R2 = 0.579
(2) 0.762***

(1) 0.198
47
(2) 0.608*** Process cost
Process
(1) R2 = 0.039
standardization
(2) R2 = 0.369

(1) 0.300
(2) 0.897***
Process quality
(1) R2 = 0.090
(2) R2 = 0.804 Figure 7.
Structural models –
industry sector
Notes: *p < 0.010; **p < 0.005; ***p < 0.001

(Section 2.4) there might be differences for other processes (other secondary/support
processes or primary processes) with different settings. Future research should discuss
this issue in more detail.
There is an opinion that process standardization prevents the display of creative
and innovative activities and that process standardization and innovation/creativity
are mutually exclusive. As a consequence, this paper’s findings might potentially not
be transferable to processes requiring a lot of creative and innovative ideas of the
employees performing them. Kondo (2000) elaborates on this aspect and finds that
“innovation and work standardization are [. . .] not mutually exclusive but mutually
complementary.” Lampel and Mintzberg (1996) investigate a continuum of strategies
from “pure standardization” to “pure customization” and find that “one secret of
successful management today” is “to customize standard concepts to fit specific
applications.” Future research, therefore, should also focus on processes requiring
plenty of creative and innovative ideas of the employees performing them and compare
the results with this paper’s findings[5].
Our questionnaire was just answered by large-scale corporations in Germany.
So, our results might not be directly transferrable to any other country or firm size.
Our results may also be affected by common method variance because we collected
the data from participants at the same time using the same survey (Podsakoff
et al., 2003).
Compared to covariance-based approaches, the PLS approach does not allow to
test for potential correlations between constructs – in our context to test if and to what
extent the process performance success dimensions time, cost, and quality might
be interrelated (e.g. loops and time-dependencies). Since the goal of this paper was
to quantitatively disclose that and to what extent BPS influences the three of the
dimensions, this does not compromise our findings.
BPMJ 4.4 Future research
16,1 As for this paper, we have chosen the recruiting process as research object (Section 2.4),
future research should do both investigate other secondary processes and select
appropriate primary processes for examination. In addition, an already planned
quantitative survey will explicitly control for the impact of industry type and firm size.
Together, these measures will allow for broader generalizability.
48 As in many other quantitative research approaches, an additional longitudinal
perspective could offer exciting results about size and duration of process
standardization’s impact on process time, cost, and quality. Especially, the use of
latent curve modeling might offer some help to future research approaches.
Future research should examine antecedents and drivers of process standardization
in more detail and different scenarios to deepen the present understanding of the
process standardization construct. First, findings of qualitative research approaches
emphasize the importance of continuous top management support, the involvement of
all departments affected as well as the particular role of organizational topology
(Muenstermann and Eckhardt, 2009).
A complementary step might be the consolidation of process and data level
arguments (Muenstermann et al., 2009), in order to elucidate the interplay of data
(e.g. electronic data interchange and Extensible Markup Language) and process
standards and to examine if there is a combined effect of process standards and data
standards on process performance.
Besides, business process performance future research might also take into account
further benefit dimensions of process standardization (as shown in Table I).

Notes
1. Examples of reference processes are, e.g. the MIT process handbook or industry-specific
reference standards such as, e.g. the “Supply chain operation reference-model (SCOR),” the
“enhanced Telecom Operations Map (eTOM),” or “IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL)” for
software-development processes. See, Kindler and Nuettgens (2005) for an overview of
reference processes or Malone et al. (1999) for how to design reference processes.
2. The process performance success dimensions time, cost, and quality are probably
interrelated. For example, an improvement in quality can both increase cost (e.g. because of
additional quality controls) or decrease cost (e.g. because of rendered unnecessary error
treatments). This paper does not aim at explaining and measuring the interplay and
interdependencies between the process performance dimensions time, cost, and quality.
Rather, it focuses on quantitatively disclosing that and to what extent business process
standardization influences the three of the dimensions. For a discussion of the dimensions’
interplay compare, for example, Beimborn et al. (2009). We thank one of the anonymous
reviewers for this comment.
3. The measurement model of the basic research model for the impact of process
standardization on process performance (including quality criteria, latent variable
correlations and cross-loadings) is presented in Tables AI-AIII in the Appendix.
4. Since we are convinced that analyzing such sub-samples can provide significant insights but
cannot yet provide the complete theory explaining our initial findings, we place these
analyses as starting point for future research within this section.
5. We thank one of the anonymous reviewers for this comment.
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Appendix
Tables for basic model

Table AI.
CA AVE CR Quality criteria for the
impact of process
Process performance 0.9558 0.5477 0.9599 standardization on
Process standardization 0.9512 0.8793 0.9665 process performance

Latent variable correlations Table AII.

Process performance Process standardization Discriminant validity for
the impact of process
Process performance 1.000000 standardization on
Process standardization 0.7867 1.000000 process performance
BPMJ
Latent variable cross-loadings
16,1 Process performance Process standardization

Process-performance (1) 0.822 0.595

Process-performance (2) 0.7763 0.5587
Process-performance (3) 0.8231 0.6383
54
Process-performance (4) 0.776 0.6359
Process-performance (5) 0.7876 0.5584
Process-performance (6) 0.7361 0.5279
Process-performance (7) 0.7485 0.595
Process-performance (8) 0.7085 0.5589
Process-performance (9) 0.6324 0.5276
Process-performance (10) 0.7652 0.8535
Process-performance (11) 0.7675 0.595
Process-performance (12) 0.8199 0.6918
Process-performance (13) 0.803 0.6914
Process-performance (14) 0.7055 0.5013
Process-performance (15) 0.7534 0.5585
Process-performance (16) 0.734 0.5284
Process-performance (17) 0.6811 0.4781
Process-performance (18) 0.7469 0.5285
Process-performance (19) 0.4645 0.2936
Process-performance (20) 0.6615 0.423
Table AIII. Process-standardization (1) 0.7922 0.9892
Cross-loadings for the
impact of process Process-standardization (2) 0.7922 0.9892
standardization on Process-standardization (3) 0.7924 0.9893
process performance Process-standardization (4) 0.5375 0.7625

Tables for extended model

Latent variable correlations

Table AIV. Process cost Process quality Process standardization Process time
Discriminant validity
for the impact of process Process cost 1.000000
standardization on Process quality 0.593563 1.000000
process time, cost, and Process standardization 0.552140 0.790962 1.000000
quality Process time 0.450318 0.646488 0.623302 1.000000
 Performance
Latent variable cross-loadings
Process cost Process quality Process standardization Process time impact of BPS
Process-time (1) 0.442023 0.639766 0.594982 0.982535
Process-time (2) 0.409194 0.597760 0.558704 0.942505
Process-time (3) 0.464487 0.640123 0.638297 0.964957
Process-time (4) 0.436011 0.593097 0.635847 0.923335 55
Process-time (5) 0.408492 0.623802 0.558467 0.942370
Process-time (6) 0.380613 0.562003 0.527889 0.905539
Process-quality (1) 0.554443 0.822204 0.595072 0.488224
Process-quality (2) 0.408893 0.803936 0.558936 0.535028
Process-quality (3) 0.389829 0.743813 0.527657 0.426039
Process-quality (4) 0.468557 0.888661 0.853580 0.530991
Process-quality (5) 0.573846 0.849946 0.595008 0.488079
Process-quality (6) 0.533951 0.920518 0.691790 0.576883
Process-quality (7) 0.527188 0.782074 0.691447 0.697151
Process-standardization (1) 0.555284 0.800748 0.989266 0.623536
Process-standardization (2) 0.555072 0.800732 0.989243 0.623692
Process-standardization (3) 0.555690 0.800808 0.989294 0.623652
Process-standardization (4) 0.380450 0.521949 0.762337 0.444087
Process-cost (1) 0.853988 0.569487 0.501281 0.401530
Process-cost (2) 0.900113 0.594511 0.558557 0.454913 Table AV.
Process-cost (3) 0.922225 0.558593 0.528467 0.426649 Cross-loadings for the
Process-cost (4) 0.896299 0.500764 0.478135 0.380032 impact of process
Process-cost (5) 0.959508 0.558531 0.528506 0.426843 standardization on
Process-cost (6) 0.721738 0.290294 0.293485 0.220030 process time, cost, and
Process-cost (7) 0.851773 0.482760 0.423055 0.389862 quality

Overview of indicators

Indicator Description

Process-time (1) We have reduced the time between the identification of a vacancy and the
posting of the job ad
Process-time (2) We have reduced the time between the posting of the job ad and the first
incoming applications
Process-time (3) We have reduced the time between the incoming applications and the
transmitted notice of arrival for the respective applicant
Process-time (4) We have reduced the time between the incoming applications and the final
hiring decision
Process-time (5) We have reduced the time between the identification of a vacancy and its fill
Process-time (6) We have reduced the time between the posting of the job ad and the final hiring
decision
Process-cost (1) We were able to reduce the costs for candidate attraction
Process-cost (2) We were able to reduce the average costs per each posted job ad
Process-cost (3) We were able to reduce the costs for the response management with the
recruiting process
Process-cost (4) We were able to reduce the costs for the internal applicant tracking
Process-cost (5) We were able to reduce the costs per tracked application
Process-cost (6) We were able to keep the internal set budgets for staff recruitment Table AVI.
(continued) Construct indicators
BPMJ Indicator Description
16,1
Process-cost (7) We were able to reduce the average costs per each hire
Process-quality (1) We were able to enhance the overall applicant quality
Process-quality (2) We were able to sustain the overall applicant quality
Process-quality (3) We were able to enhance the quality of applicants’ data
56 Process-quality (4) We are satisfied with the matching between the hired candidates and the open
vacancy
Process-quality (5) We were able to enhance the proportion of top candidates
Process-quality (6) We were able to enhance the degree of information for our operating
departments
Process-quality (7) Our applicants are very satisfied with our offer of information
Process- We have a well-regulated process cycle for applicant tracking in our staff
standardization (1) recruitment
Process- We have established an efficient organized process in our staff recruitment
standardization (2)
Process- We have established highly standardized procedures in our staff recruitment
standardization (3)
Process- We have documented our actions to a great extent
Table AVI. standardization (4)

About the authors

Björn Münstermann is a doctoral student at the Information Systems and Services Department at
the University of Bamberg, Germany. Before starting his current doctoral research, he worked for
the Business Technology Office of McKinsey & Company for several years. His research interests
include BPS and BPM as well as the interplay of BPS/BPM with service-oriented architectures.
He gained broad practical experience during his time as technology consultant focused on the
tourism industry and the financial industries. He has published numerous articles in the
proceedings of conferences such as HICSS, AMCIS, ECIS, and Conf-IRM. Björn Münstermann is
the corresponding author and can be contacted at: mail@BjoernMuenstermann.de
Andreas Eckhardt is a doctoral student at the Institute of Information Systems of
Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main and a member of the research project Centre of Human
Resources Information Systems. His research interests include technology adoption especially
the role and measurement of social influence, impact and interplay of data, and business process
standards as well as the design of HR IS and architectures. He has published numerous articles in
scientific journals such as Journal of Information Technology, Information Systems Frontiers,
International Journal of Electronic Services and Mobile Applications, and Wirtschaftsinformatik
plus in the proceedings of conferences such as ECIS, AMCIS, PACIS, HICSS and WI.
Tim Weitzel is a Professor and a Chair in the Information Systems and Services Department
at the University of Bamberg, Germany. He received his PhD from Goethe University in
Frankfurt am Main, Germany. His research on standards, IT management, e-finance,
outsourcing, Human Resource and IS has been published in eight books and in journals
including MIS Quarterly, Decision Support Systems, Journal of Information Technology,
Electronic Markets, Information Systems Frontiers, Journal of Enterprise Information Systems,
Information Systems and E-Business Management, Journal of Electronic Commerce Research,
International Journal of Standards and Standardization Research, and Wirtschaftsinformatik.

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