Towards a Model to Understand ECMS-use in Supporting Business Processes☆

The aim of this paper is to design a conceptual model that can be used by practitioners and researchers to better understand how they can possibly use Enterprise Content Management Systems (ECMS) in supporting their business operations. In designing the model, this research has reviewed ECMS literature that provides insight on how these technologies work. ECMS researchers point to two possible ways to understand and explore how ECMS is used to support business operations. These two possible ways provides a direction to this study which is, to: (1) consider organization's business process structure as a starting point to understand ECMS-use; and (2) examine the interaction between technologies (ECMS), the organizational context, processes, business needs and users that shape certain ways of using these technologies. At the end of this paper, a research model that guide practitioners to understand ways to maximize and benefit from ECMS-use is presented. Business and IT managers could use the model to better understand ways to apply ECMS in their daily work practices to conduct business. On the other hand, IS researchers could use this model to further conduct empirical investigation to get a deeper understanding of ECMS-use and uncover qualities that have not been discovered in this study.