Causes and consequences of fragmented process information: Insights from a case study

Having access to the right information is vital to the effective and efficient execution of an organization’s business processes. A major challenge in this regard is that information on a single process is often spread out over numerous models, documents, and systems. Despite the potential consequences of this situation, there is a lack of insights on how to mitigate its impact. Against this background, we conducted an explorative case study to analyze the causes and consequences of the fragmentation of process information. We found that the widespread fragmentation of information had a considerable impact on the investigated organization. In particular, fragmentation led to severe maintenance issues, reduced process execution efficiency, and had a negative effect on the quality of process results. Our findings provide useful insights for both practice and research on how to mitigate the negative aspects associated with the fragmentation of process information.