Business Process Management in the Classroom

Teaching Business Process Management

Several authors have stressed the importance of teaching BPM in graduate business schools (Bandara et al., 2010; Hadidi, 2014; Lee, 2008; Hawking, McCarthy, & Stein, 2004) and the need to integrate business processes concepts and their task dependencies in ERP training (Pellerin & Hadaya, 2008; Kang & Santhanam, 2003; Shtub 2001). Léger (2006) pointed out that teaching the business concepts that are underlying ERP systems is difficult because many students lack experience to relate to these concepts. Since the academic world is more focused on functional expertise rather than an integrated multidisciplinary approach, it is difficult to structure a curriculum for the purpose of BPM (Bandara, et, al., 2010). On the other hand, traditional methods are not found to be suitable for teaching and learning ERP systems and their underlying business processes (Adelsberger et al., 1999). Seethamraju (2008) found that students’ ability to develop a deeper understanding of integrated business processes and utilize it in decision-making was limited when traditional teaching methods were used and argued that innovative models are necessary in order to improve effective learning of these concepts.