A critical examination of the business process re‐engineering phenomenon

Abstract

Few other managerial innovations have become popular as quickly as has business process reengineering (BPR); however, probably no other innovation has been interpreted in so many different ways either. This paper seeks to discover whether there is a conceptual core which both identifies and differentiates BPR from other practices adopted for organizational change and, also, what value it may really have. After illustrating how the concept of BPR, which was initially elaborated in the context of strategic management of information technology, has been ably reconstructed and transformed into the managerial revolution of the 1990s, this paper goes on to show how this reconstructed BPR cannot be considered to be an innovative and distinct approach to organizational change. Furthermore, it will be highlighted how BPR has served to spread a simplistic and Utopian vision of organizations and of organizational change, and how this requires careful reflection and re‐assessment of management fads.