Facilitating flexibility in interorganisational processes: a conceptual model

Collaboration and coordination between the organisations are necessary in today's business environment, and are enabled by interorganisational business processes. However, shared interorganisational processes may pose additional constraints on the internal processes of an organisation and reduce their flexibility. Many approaches to the construction of interorganisational processes have been proposed recently. These approaches vary from each other in the level of flexibility granted to the participating organisations. Furthermore, most of these approaches focus on implementation details, not relying on a sound theoretical basis. This paper proposes a conceptual model that depicts the nature of the interaction between the organisations through business processes. The model relies on the Generic Process Model (GPM) framework and on Bunge's ontology. It specifically addresses the identification of minimal requirements for achieving an operational process while not interfering with the privacy, autonomy and flexibility of the participating organisations. The application of the model is demonstrated through a case study of an Inter-Library Loan (ILL) process.