Exploring the Influence of Organizational Culture on BPM Success: The Experience of the Pernambuco Court of Accounts

(a) Situation faced: This chapter presents a cultural analysis of the BPM initiative conducted by a public organization, the Pernambuco Court of Accounts (TCE-PE). In particular, we look at how organizational culture influences the evolution of our BPM initiative. (b) Action taken: We conducted in-depth interviews, observations, and documentation analyses in order to understand each interviewee’s organizational culture. Then we analyzed the extent to which the TCE-PE culture is aligned with a BPM-supportive culture, as represented by the CERT values (Customer orientation, Excellence, Responsibility, Teamwork). (c) Results achieved: We identified a set of cultural values, practices, and organizational characteristics at TCE-PE that may influence the BPM culture—that is, the aspects of the organizational culture that would act as facilitators of or barriers to our BPM initiative. We present a set of strategies that nurture the cultural values that are supportive of BPM and hinder those that are obstacles of BPM. (d) Lessons learned: During our journey toward establishing a BPM-supportive culture at TCE-PE, we learned that key success factors include investing heavily in communication, understanding who the stakeholders are and what they want, and creating a long-term vision of BPM goals and articulating them with future sponsors. We believe the experience presented in this chapter has value for public organizations that face challenges in aligning their organizational culture with BPM principles.