{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,24]],"date-time":"2026-03-24T16:02:58Z","timestamp":1774368178700,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":53,"publisher":"Emerald","issue":"1","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2009,2,6]],"date-time":"2009-02-06T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1233878400000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/www.emerald.com\/insight\/site-policies"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":[],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2009,2,6]]},"abstract":"<jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-heading\">Purpose<\/jats:title><jats:p>Many business process improvement efforts emphasize better integration, yet process integration can mean many things. The purpose of this paper is to emphasize the importance of information flows to modern business processes, and draw upon recent organizational and information systems literature to characterize process integration and to derive four principles of process integration: accessibility, timeliness, transparency, and granularity of information flows.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-heading\">Design\/methodology\/approach<\/jats:title><jats:p>Using a field study, the four principles of process integration are applied to analyze ten different business processes across five organizations.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-heading\">Findings<\/jats:title><jats:p>In total, 18 generalized activities are identified that describe non\u2010integrated behavior, and \u201ckeying in known data\u201d was found to be the most common. Among other findings, analysis highlights the importance of documentation to modern business processes, especially for coordination roles, and the paper describes three different purposes for documentation found in the data: content, process validation, and posterity.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-heading\">Research limitations\/implications<\/jats:title><jats:p>The articulation of \u201cbusiness process integration\u201d offers a foundation for future research in this area. Findings are limited in generalizability to various levels of processes, as well as possible instrument\u2010related biases.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-heading\">Practical implications<\/jats:title><jats:p>The principles of process integration provide a lens through which practitioners can analyze processes. Empirical findings stress the role of documentation, forms of documentation, and types of non\u2010integrated work.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-heading\">Originality\/value<\/jats:title><jats:p>The paper characterizes process integration in relation to other commonly\u2010used constructs such as organizational integration, data integration, and application integration. Principles are derived from the literature that can guide future inquiry and practice associated with business process improvement.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.1108\/14637150910931505","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2009,1,31]],"date-time":"2009-01-31T07:06:23Z","timestamp":1233385583000},"page":"119-141","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":72,"title":["Information flows and business process integration"],"prefix":"10.1108","volume":"15","author":[{"given":"Nicholas","family":"Berente","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Betty","family":"Vandenbosch","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Benoit","family":"Aubert","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"140","reference":[{"key":"key2022030920352956000_b1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Al\u2010Mashari, M. 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