Directory UMM :Data Elmu:jurnal:I:Information and Management:Vol38.Issue4.2001:

Information & Management 38 (2001) 239±251

Surges and sediments: shaping the reception of reengineering
Stefan Heusinkveld*, Jos Benders
Nijmegen Business School, University of Nijmegen, P.O. Box 9108, NL-6500 HK, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Received 9 March 2000; accepted 25 August 2000

Abstract
The business community is continuously confronted with allegedly new concepts. These are often temporarily intensely
advocated, yet are at the same time likely to be portrayed as transitory or `faddish' phenomena. To trace the reception of these
concepts, this paper examines the Dutch discourse on business process reengineering (BPR). Instead of showing a single
transitory pattern, empirical evidence revealed a complex and multifaceted dynamic. Though BPR has been propagated
extensively, it has been exploited as an umbrella to encompass divergent organizational insights. At the same time, the
reception pattern of the concept varied signi®cantly across distinct social contexts. Particularly, BPR had a signi®cant and
sustained impact within the Dutch IS community. Although the concept has been criticized since its inception, it has
undoubtedly induced discourse that has been used widely to shape contemporary IS problems and solutions. As a result, this
concept has played a signi®cant role in the dissemination and understanding of organizational knowledge. # 2001 Elsevier
Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Management fashion; Business process reengineering; Diffusion of organizational knowledge; IS issues; Organization concepts
Category: Research

1. Introduction
The Engineering Industry is as much subject to
fashion as any other human activity, and a study
of its history reveals a succession of new ideas
which have swept into the industrial limelight,
each being received as a panacea which is going
to revolutionize production, only to make way
for some newer idea still. [

] each has had its
day, made some contribution to management
thought, and then receded from the limelight
[25].
*

Corresponding author. Tel.: ‡31-24-3611615;
fax: ‡31-24-3611933.
E-mail address: s.heusinkveld@bw.kun.nl (S. Heusinkveld).

Replace engineering by IT and this 1957 quote has
been updated to today. Then, as now, managers and IT
professionals were confronted with waves of allegedly

new concepts, technology, and practices promising
improved performance. Given this constant stream
of new inventions and potential breakthroughs combined with the uncertainty this brings, IT professionals
seem be either gullible or will likely have an especially
favorable disposition towards well-published and
ostensibly new ideas.
In an earlier issue of Information and Management,
Lee et al. [86] empirically investigated the emergence
and development of themes in IS research and praxis
between 1991 and 1995. Although a limited number of
journals and magazines were examined, the study
revealed several notable changes in the intensity of

0378-7206/01/$ ± see front matter # 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 3 7 8 - 7 2 0 6 ( 0 0 ) 0 0 0 6 9 - 0

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S. Heusinkveld, J. Benders / Information & Management 38 (2001) 239±251

discourse on particular topics over time. As the initial
widespread media attention to these ideas eventually
appears to be short-lived, these concepts are quickly
dismissed as hypes or fads and considered at odds with
the needs of serious managers and professionals
[85,98]. Nevertheless, these ideas seem to have considerable impact on both organizational discourse and
praxis [75]. This has caused researchers to study
`management fashion' [1,3,63,77]. A management
fashion is considered as a relatively transitory managerial discourse on a particular concept and organizational changes induced by, and associated with this
discourse [15].
We argue that many theoretical efforts on `management fashions' often fail to account for the empirical
complexities involved with the reception of these
popular concepts. Firstly, present literature treats a
business community as a rather homogeneous entity.
However, although certain concepts are widely propagated and disseminated, signi®cant differences may
occur in the uptake of these concepts within distinct
professional and sectoral boundaries. Secondly, processes of re-interpretation or translation parallel the
extensive dissemination of these ideas across business
communities. However, most of the literature on
management fashions provides limited information

on the content and scope of an item in a particular
social context. As a result, they may impede understanding of the meaning of a concept to a business
community or the speci®c way it has been used.
Finally, current literature tends to focus solely on
the transitory nature of concepts and management
knowledge. Instead, this paper suggests a more multifaceted view in which movements of transience and
persistence co-exist.
The present study concentrates on the impact of one
such `fashionable' concept: business process reengineering, in The Netherlands. We draw on extensive
bibliographic data in order to trace the way discourse
on this management issue evolved over time. This
paper uses a research method that entails the simultaneous application of a qualitative survey with a quantitative analysis based on current bibliographic
material. Thus, we seek not only to measure the
development in the intensity of discourse on BPR
but also to get `inside' the discourse, and seek to
understand how it has been socially constructed in a
speci®c business community. Unlike most present

theoretical accounts, this study will show a more
complex, multifaceted dynamic that is continuously

shaping the meaning of a speci®c concept.

2. Management fashion
Present, largely conceptual, accounts on `management fashion' have tended to regard the incessant ¯ow
of allegedly new concepts a result of processes of
supply and demand of transient management ideas in
their mutual interaction. On the one hand these technologies and concepts have often been propagated by
`fashion setters' trying to `hitch-hike on a hype' [13]
and thereby enhance their business. Under the banner
of an appealing label, organizational knowledge is
commodi®ed and presented as solution to most of the
present-day organizational problems [47]. Often to
enhance their ability to `¯ow' within a community,
concepts are launched as novel, promising ideas that
will bring signi®cant performance improvements
[102].
To propagate and legitimate a fashionable idea
fashion setters will seek to introduce it as an issue
of contemporary managerial discourse. Discourse on
these issues seems to encompass at least two important

aspects. First, it is suggested that there exists a
dramatic gap in performance between `advanced'
and `ordinary' organizations [2]. The latter's survival
is threatened if they continue working in their accustomed way. Second, the fashion is presented as a
rational, progressive cure-all for the performance
gap, so that implementing the concept can be seen
as a rational act leading progress. By referring to
successful applications in prominent organizations
they are portrayed as a bene®cial and legitimate
solution. Such arguments may impel other organizations to adopt the concept and induce actions
associated with the discourse.
On the other hand, managers are continuously
confronted with persistent and complex organizational
problems. As certain concepts gain in popularity, these
managers may feel compelled to adopt them. They
then appear to be innovative and have a legitimate
banner under which organizational change may be
applied. Moreover, such concepts may be useful in
framing organization problems and stimulating adaptive processes [28]. As a result, these phenomena

S. Heusinkveld, J. Benders / Information & Management 38 (2001) 239±251

become not only extensively debated but are also
regarded as a driver for organizational actions.
In most cases, popular concepts eventually become
heavily criticized as wide application and scienti®c
study reveals few of the initially promised performance improvements. As a consequence, the reception patterns of these phenomena within a business
community frequently show a transitory character
in which a period of uncritical euphoria is quickly
followed by a phase of disillusionment [50]. Obviously, these concepts are at odds with academic
ideas for building systematically and cumulatively
on existing knowledge. Hence, instead of regarding
managers as high quality professionals [56], these
patterns easily lead one to see them as gullible and
capricious, eagerly embracing these concepts in the
hope of dealing with complex and persistent organizational problems.

3. Reception pattern
3.1. Surge
The swings in the popularity of organizational

concepts have frequently been pictured as a rapid
surge or, as Kieser denotes, a bell-shaped curve. Often
following the publication of a bestseller or article in a
prominent periodical, a short-lived temporarily intensive discourse emerges within a community. For
example, Abrahamson reveals that the course of
debate on quality circles (QC) in the United States
was characterized by a sinusoid wave during the
1980s. He suggests that this discourse was mainly
induced by widespread reports about excellent Japanese economic performance. Drawing elaborately on
Japanese management practices, the idea of QC
became an icon for the ef®ciency of this system of
production. In the US, QC was introduced in the late
1970s. The concept received signi®cant attention from
practitioners as well as academics and the intensity of
discourse grew rapidly until 1983. This was nevertheless quickly followed by a rather sharp decline
towards the end of the 1980s. As a result, we assert:
Proposition 1. Immediately after its introduction, the
intensity of discourse on a fashionable concept follows
a short-lived surge.

241

3.2. Context
Although fashionable concepts are extensively propagated and transferred, the extent and the way they
are received may be highly context-speci®c. Not only
between countries [27,51], but also within a country
one may ®nd notable variations in the way a concept
has been taken up. Historical analyses revealed that
most surges of management discourse are largely
impelled through the actions of speci®c professional
subgroups [8]. For instance, the rise of the discourse
on `management systems' in the early 20th century
was mainly induced by mechanical engineers seeking
to enhance their profession and legitimize their ideas
on organizational design [107]. Also, the evolution of
speci®c problems and solutions are embedded in a
distinct business context. For example Mueller
showed that discourse on the concept of teamwork
has largely been conducted within speci®c sectoral
boundaries. These ®ndings support the notion that the

shaping of certain concepts within a country is likely
to be in¯uenced by professional and sectoral conditions [92]. Thus, we presume:
Proposition 2. The pattern of discourse about a
concept may vary across different professional and
sectoral communities.
3.3. Translation
Frequently management fashions are presented in a
vague or rather ambiguous way. Yet, one of the most
important factors for a concept's ability to `¯ow' is its
`interpretative viability' [97]. This notion implies that
a concept must lend itself for various interpretations to
become successful. The interpretative space makes a
concept applicable to divergent situations and acceptable to different parties involved. As a consequence,
travelling across different environments, the meaning
of these ideas are translated and re-shaped by a
constellation of particular local forces [29]. This
process of translation may result in a decoupling of
a concept and actions taken in its name. For example
Benders and van Bijsterveld suggest that although the
concept of `lean production' was extensively disseminated in Germany, their local practices were signi®cantly at odds with those at Toyota Motors in Japan

[14]. Hence:

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S. Heusinkveld, J. Benders / Information & Management 38 (2001) 239±251

Proposition 3. Discourse undertaken under the name
of a concept is likely to become loosely coupled to the
original content.
3.4. The transitory nature of concepts
Management fashions tend to follow a similar shortlived pattern and are often denoted as having a transitory
character. Gill and Whittle hypothesized that, though the
evolution of a concept moves through a period of high
enthusiasm, it eventually reaches a stage of considerable
disappointment. They argue that after a period of excitement, a concept becomes heavily criticized and looses its
image of a rational and progressive idea. In addition,
management fashion literature suggests that the shortlived pattern of discourse parallel theway these ideas are
actually received in different organizations. Initial high
promises and expectations of performance improvements are, often due to disappointing applications within
these organizations, quickly followed by a collapse of in
terest [149]. Eventually this may induce the upswing of
interest for another concept. Therefore, we may state:
Proposition 4. Discourse on a fashionable concept
turns from a pattern of early excitement into an
increasing level of criticism and eventually enters a
general rejection phase.

4. Methodology
At end of the 1980s, the term `Reengineering' was
used to denote several radical organizational change
projects within large companies which allegedly
resulted in improved business performance [55]. In
the early 1990s this idea was expanded to argue that
companies should use modern IT to help radically
redesign their business processes to gain `dramatic'
performance improvement [30,52]. Mainly due to
publications by prominent authors like Hammer and
Davenport, the concept of BPR received considerable
interest in the international business community and
was regarded as one of the most important issues on
the managerial agenda [22]. However, the degree of
change varied between advocators of radical change
and plain skeptics and critics [23].
In order to gain an empirically based insight into the
Dutch reception pattern of BPR, we used biblio-

graphic material. First, a large set of articles was
collected. The September 1998 Dutch bibliographic
databases of Landelijke Online Contents, KUB Online
Contents, Excerpta Informatica and Management CD
were searched using the key words `Reengineering',
`BPR', and `Process Redesign'. Though there was some
overlap in the periodicals reviewed, the different characteristics of these large databases complemented one
another. The bibliographic search was repeated in June
1999. This yielded several additional records for 1998.
All Dutch publications were then extracted from the
set of BPR records. Articles that outside the concept or
duplicated were eliminated. Moreover, by examining
reference lists a number of additional Dutch articles
were found. This search resulted in 286 articles from
87 different Dutch journals and magazines published
between 1991 and 1998. This set included 50 Dutch
translations of articles formerly published in foreign
outlets. The articles were put to the academic or
practice domain [5] by considering their anticipated
audience or applied research methodology [9]. After
this, the professional publications were assigned to
different subgroups. Here magazines were classi®ed
as outlets of General Management (gen), Personnel
Management (per), Finance/Accounting (®n), or
Information Technology (IT).
Finally, a sample of 111 full-text articles was
generated and examined by an in-depth content analysis. The sample contained members from each subpopulation. However, translations of articles formerly
published in foreign periodicals were excluded from
the sample. This qualitative survey allowed us to make
inferences on issues such as what meaning is attributed to BPR and how has it been shaped in a particular
context. Finally, we attempted to determine in what
ways BPR has been criticized in the speci®c time
period. These indications were then contrasted with
evidence that BPR might have an enduring impact on
management theory and business practices within The
Netherlands.

5. Results
5.1. Surge
Fig. 1 shows the number of publications on BPR
over time; it resembles a bell-shaped curve. This

S. Heusinkveld, J. Benders / Information & Management 38 (2001) 239±251

243

Fig. 1. Annual frequency of dutch Reengineering articles.

discussion emerged in 1991 with a translation of
Michael Hammer's article from the June/August edition of Harvard Business Review in 1990, which was
translated and was published in Holland Management
Review. Rapidly following this article, the ®rst Dutch
article was published in the same journal in 1992 and
was authored by KPMG consultants Batelaan and
Vrolijk [11]. In the years following, Batelaan published several other articles on BPR in which he stayed
close to the early ideas [10,12]. Subsequently, the
intensity reached a maximum in 1995, followed by
a sharp decrease. Apparently, local discourse on BPR
in The Netherlands emerged about 2 years after the
widespread introduction of the concept. Thus, in
support of Proposition 1, the intensity of Dutch
BPR discourse in general did show a bell shaped
surge after the initial publications on the concept.
5.2. Context
Fig. 2 demonstrates that most of the Dutch literature
was in the managerial media and spread over to nonmanagerial domains as well. The academic discourse
did not start until 1994, so there is a time lag of about 3
years compared to the inception of the managerial
debate. At the same time the shape of academic

discourse was not sinusoidal. Speci®cally, in the years
following 1994, it remained relatively constant,
though small. When we analyzed the titles and
abstracts of these academic papers, it became apparent
that BPR is frequently discussed next to the intellectual property of sociotechnical systems design
(STSD). So Dutch academic discourse on BPR is
mainly interested in how this allegedly new concept
differs from nationally established intellectual traditions of organization design.
Within practice, discourse on BPR was primarily in
the realm of IT. This community was responsible for
over 46% of the total volume of Dutch practitioners'
articles. Fig. 3 reveals several important features of the
evolution within different business communities.
Firstly, in the upswing the intensity of discourse in
IT showed a more rapid acceleration and reached its
maximum in 1994. Secondly, the subsets of gen, per
and ®n had a relatively gradual increase with a maximum in 1995 followed by a sharp decline. However,
the discourse in the IT domain seems to be more
persistent since there is only a slight decrease in
magnitude through 1998. Consistent with Proposition
2, several dissimilarities in emergence, intensity, and
persistence are revealed between different professional and sectoral communities.

244

S. Heusinkveld, J. Benders / Information & Management 38 (2001) 239±251

Fig. 2. Annual frequency of Dutch Reengineering articles from the praxis, academic and non-managerial domain.

5.3. Translation
In their seminal work on BPR, Hammer and
Champy tried to differentiate their concept from other

prescriptive approaches to organizational design by
asserting that BPR is not equivalent to automation,
downsizing or TQM [53]. Nevertheless, local management consultants (re)shaped the concept in their own

Fig. 3. Annual frequency of Dutch (praxis) reengineering articles from the General Management (gen), Personnel Management (per),
Finance/Accounting (fin) and Information Technology (IT) domain.

S. Heusinkveld, J. Benders / Information & Management 38 (2001) 239±251

way and often viewed BPR as an umbrella that may
encompass a large variety of organizational insights.
Under the label of BPR they presented various methods and techniques for organizational design [24,65,
71,73,79,88,93,103,143]. Consider the following:
[Redesign] involves the simultaneous and
coherent application of existing design principles from diverse disciplines. [. . .] Industrial
Engineering, Sociotechnical Systems Design,
Quality Management, Logistics, Information
Systems and Management Accounting [95].
Also in practice a variety of ideas has been used
[130]. One example of how the interpretative space
has been exploited in practice is shown by a publication of a case study concerning an organizational
change project at a Dutch parts distributor. This
organizational change project was labeled `BPR',
though it was clear for the authors that several organization concepts were combined:
Different organization concepts and techniques
have been used within the reorganization
of NMHG's Parts Operation: Sociotechnical
Systems Design, Balance Scorecard, Viable
Systems and Autonomous Teams [138].
BPR was initially presented as a radical approach
on organizational change that mainly focused on
`fundamentally' restructuring work processes. However, a considerable amount of Dutch papers displayed
a focus on human aspects of organizational analysis
and redesign [57,60,64,89,94,104,105]. Culture, commitment, and communication were perceived as
important variables in order to successfully redesign
organizational processes [26,44,45,74,120]. Hence, a
signi®cant degree of attention concentrated also on
the application of particular Change Management
methods within organizational redesign efforts
[16,58,59,144]. The following may illustrate this:
Bear in mind that BPR is not solely a technocratic approach but will have significant effects
on the culture of the organization [76].
BPR is about people. [. . .] The more people are
actually involved in shaping the changes, the
larger the chances of success [87].
Moreover, several case studies and reports on
practical applications show that BPR does not necessarily start from scratch [54,100] and outline the
importance of social aspects within BPR projects
[33,40,48,83,91,135±137].

245

During the course of the activities it became
gradually clear that the motivation, knowledge
and involvement of employees would be the
most important critical success factors. The
redesigned processes, the integral IT and especially the ambitious performance targets required a cultural change [. . .] [122].
Empirical results reveal that, in line with Proposition 3, the term BPR seemed to entail a large amount
of divergent organizational insights. In addition,
organizational changes associated with BPR offered
a possibility to incorporate both `hard' and `soft'
elements.
5.4. Transitory nature of BPR
Dutch discourse is infused by critical publications
that contested the ideas carried by BPR. Here, the
concept has been criticized for lacking a methodological fundament on organization design and holding
limited scienti®c foundation [84]. Besides, the initial
conceptualizations of BPR are downplayed because of
their inadequate attention to particular elements of
change management like the development of learning
capabilities, participation, culture and communication
[19,106]. Some papers suggest that the concept may
induce a simpli®ed view of work processes [131,139]
and creates large expectations that often result in risky
approaches [18,132]. One author even asserts that
BPR is morally wrong because it can be considered
as a symptom of cynicism and egoism [111]. Several
times BPR was compared to the Dutch approach of
Sociotechnical Systems Design [80,81,99,108,133].
Most of these publications argue that BPR does not
have any contribution to existing knowledge on organizational design and change management. However,
the number of critical articles seem however relatively
small.
At the same time, empirical results indicate that
particularly in the IS community BPR has a strong
base for entrenchment [150]. Here, the concept is
regarded as one of the most popular and important
IT related issues of the 1990s in The Netherlands
[31,113,125,126]. Throughout IS discourse, there is
an extensive plea to incorporate a BPR approach
within systems development methods [32,41,62,
78,115,118,140,141,146]. Firstly, by propagating
a process orientation, the concept furthered a

246

S. Heusinkveld, J. Benders / Information & Management 38 (2001) 239±251

widespread recognition of the signi®cance of analyzing cross-functional relationships [7,39,42,49,101,
112,142,147,148]. As a consequence, BPR is frequently related to the implementation of various
forms of IT in organizations [4,34,35,38,116,121,
128,129,145] like for example Work¯ow Management
[6,72,90,119,134] and e-commerce [61,96]. It is even
postulated that Work¯ow is rarely introduced without
a preceding BPR effort [43,117]. These contemporary
technologies encompass divergent aspects of business
operations and cut through often functionally designed
organizations and IT systems. Here BPR provided a
strong focus on work processes instead of mechanizing merely functional areas.
Moreover, the concept is regarded as valuable
because of its holistic character [127]. Initiating a
BPR effort offers an opportunity to conceptualize
IT next to issues of strategy, structure, and people
in a coherent way [20,21,37,68,70]. As a result, BPR is
perceived as an advanced phase in the convergence of
the IT domain and the organizational domain
[109,110,123,124]. Apparently this concept contributed to the dissemination of the notion that a single
focus on a pure technocratic approach of systems
development and organizational change often leads
to dysfunctional effects.
Not only ambition, necessity and scope of the
change have to be matched, also changes in
processes, technology and structure should be
paralleled by changes in management systems
and culture [82].
The notion that to realize such ambitions
demands more from an organization than implementing changes partially we call the essence of
business reengineering. It concerns `management by matching', focussing on coherence
[66].
Although it is argued that existing system development methodologies have incorporated insights from
the BPR concept, several papers assert that the use of
the speci®c label will gradually diminish [17,67].
Hence, empirical results portray just partial support
to Proposition 4. Though there was signi®cant opposition to BPR, the number of critical assessments has not
dominated Dutch discourse and has not increased over
the years. Instead, the concept has induced an extensive, and still ongoing discourse in the IS community
that concentrated on analyzing business processes as

well as addressing organizational and technological
changes in a balanced way.

6. Conclusion
The case of Dutch BPR reception yielded several
notable insights. Firstly, the initial ideas entering a
Dutch business community have been `translated' in
various ways. Often local consultants sought to shape
local ideas of BPR. Here they espoused various
recipes and `grafted' them on the initial rhetoric of
BPR propagated by several prominent American
authors. The concept has been exploited as an
umbrella to propagate and legitimate the use of divergent methods and techniques on organizational
design. We also saw that the initial radical ideas on
restructuring business processes are often mediated by
drawing on insights from change management as well
as concentrating on the social aspects of organizational change.
Secondly, instead of showing a single national
reception pattern, data from this study indicated that
within a national context, distinct communities
receive a concept in different ways. In the case of
BPR, the IS discipline appears to be particularly
susceptible to the ideas associated with this concept.
Here BPR offered a legitimate approach to concentrate on business processes and to address both technological and organizational changes in a coherent
fashion. As a consequence, IS professionals used BPR
discourse to shape present-day problems and solutions
concerning the exploitation of IT in organizations.
Thirdly, although current literature often stresses
the short-lived character of elaborately discussed
issues, this paper argues that both transience and
longevity may co-exist. Apparently, introducing IT
in organizations has never been an unproblematic
issue [46] but turned out to be persistent, complex
and of all times [114]. Still BPR managed to impel a
contemporary extensive discourse on this issue. The
concept offered an allegedly new solution to address
these issues that, according to its propagators, would
yield dramatic performance improvements. However,
as these ideas are known for a long time within Dutch
academic traditions on organizational design [36],
concepts like BPR may be regarded as just an appealing and simpli®ed reformulation of organizational

S. Heusinkveld, J. Benders / Information & Management 38 (2001) 239±251

knowledge. Apparently `old' knowledge has been
recycled and presented as `new' in different spatial
and temporal contexts [69]. Hence, although the issues
raised are not new and BPR insights may provide no
contribution to the systematic accumulation of organizational knowledge, the concept came to set many
present-day managerial agendas.
Within several areas the initial large attention to
BPR seems to be transient and just faded away towards
the end of the 1990s. Though, the IS community shows
strong bases that increase the likelihood of entrenchment. We saw that elements of BPR were integrated in
system development methodologies and turned out to
be common practices within IT implementation projects. Here, the concept played an important part in the
dissemination and understanding of organizational
knowledge.
Finally, this study showed that to understand the
way a concept has been received, one must consider
the speci®c way it condensed and crystallized within a
particular social context. As a consequence, we argue
that a qualitative approach to studying discourse by
means of an elaborate content analysis may be complementary to the often-used quantitative data. It
moves a study beyond just measuring the extent with
which a key word appears in a bibliographic database
and merely establishing timing and intensity. Instead,
we were able to trace the evolution of a concept within
divergent contexts and account for the multifaceted
way in which local managerial discourse shaped the
meaning of a concept.

Acknowledgements
We are indebted to Fred Huijgen, Kees van Veen,
the editor of I&M, one anonymous reviewer and the
members of the Nijmegen Business School research
group `Organization Concepts' for their useful comments on an earlier draft of the manuscript.

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