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The Impact of Process Complexity on Process Performance: A Study Using Event Log Data

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Business Process Management (BPM 2023)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 14159))

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Abstract

Complexity is an important characteristic of any business process. The key assumption of much research in Business Process Management is that process complexity has a negative impact on process performance. So far, behavioral studies have measured complexity based on the perception of process stakeholders. The aim of this study is to investigate if such a connection can be supported based on the analysis of event log data. To do so, we employ a set of 38 metrics that capture different dimensions of process complexity. We use these metrics to build various regression models that explain process performance in terms of throughput time. We find that process complexity as captured in event logs explains the throughput time of process executions to a considerable extent, with the respective R-squared reaching up to 0.96. Our study offers implications for empirical research on process performance and can serve as a toolbox for practitioners.

Jan Mendling: The research by Jan Mendling was supported by the Einstein Foundation Berlin under grant EPP-2019-524 and by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research under grant 16DII133.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    https://github.com/MaxVidgof/process-complexity.

  2. 2.

    https://github.com/MaxVidgof/complexity-data.

  3. 3.

    https://pm4py.fit.fraunhofer.de/.

  4. 4.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Industrial_Classification.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien, Welthandelsplatz 1, 1020, Vienna, Austria

    Maxim Vidgof & Jan Mendling

  2. Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, LMU Munich School of Management, Ludwigstrasse 28, 80539, Munich, Germany

    Bastian Wurm

  3. Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, 10099, Berlin, Germany

    Jan Mendling

  4. Weizenbaum Institute, Hardenbergstraße 32, 10623, Berlin, Germany

    Jan Mendling

Authors
  1. Maxim Vidgof
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  2. Bastian Wurm
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  3. Jan Mendling
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Maxim Vidgof .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Trento, Trento, Italy

    Chiara Di Francescomarino

  2. Technical University of Denmark, Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark

    Andrea Burattin

  3. TU Dortmund University, Dortmund, Germany

    Christian Janiesch

  4. The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

    Shazia Sadiq

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Vidgof, M., Wurm, B., Mendling, J. (2023). The Impact of Process Complexity on Process Performance: A Study Using Event Log Data. In: Di Francescomarino, C., Burattin, A., Janiesch, C., Sadiq, S. (eds) Business Process Management. BPM 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14159. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41620-0_24

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41620-0_24

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