Public disclosure versus private practice: challenges in business process management

This paper explores the gap between actual work practices and their articulation. Our goal is to bring this gap to the forefront as an important consideration for operational process modeling. Business process models presuppose accurate disclosure of employee work practices. However, the presence of a gap between personal practices and their public disclosure is a challenge for accurately representing the true nature of business operations. We describe a field study of the working practices of a municipal organization where we identified this gap. We then offer several underlying motivations that contribute to the existence of this disparity. These findings hold important implications for global enterprises, and for process modeling efforts in general.