Teaching Business Process Management with Simulation in Graduate Business Programs: An Integrative Approach

1. INTRODUCTION In order to meet the challenges of intensified competition and regulatory pressures in the global economic environment, organizations have long viewed IT-supported process change as a strategic priority (Davenport and Short, 1990; Lewis et al., 2007). Business Process Management (BPM) is a set of methodologies for defining, analyzing, changing (incrementally improving or radically reengineering) and managing organizational processes using lessons from three inter-related disciplines--quality control, performance management, and information technology (IT) automation (Harmon, 2010). Organizations are increasingly adopting BPM techniques to improve their processes and compete with business process outsourcing (BPO) countries such as India, Ireland, Hong Kong, Philippines, and Vietnam (Alonso et al., 2000; Cleveland, 2002; Profozich, 1998; Saltzman and Malhotra, 2001). Because of its operations management roots, BPM concepts are included in many MBA programs as part of the operations management curriculum, but stand-alone courses are also starting to emerge (Bandara et al., 2010). Recently, BPM has also been gaining recognition in the Information Systems (IS) field--for both teaching and research (Chircu et al., 2010). At the graduate level, the MSIS 2006 curriculum notes that significant changes in both technology and business create a need to strengthen the emphasis on several important concepts in MSIS programs, either through specialized courses or integration throughout the curriculum: business processes, emerging technologies, globalization, human-computer interactions, and impacts of digitization (Gorgone et al., 2006). We expect that the upcoming revision of the curriculum will contain a similar emphasis on BPM as a "business fundamentals" graduate course. Not surprisingly, many universities are now offering courses in BPM due to the increasing industry demand for trained professionals (Lee, 2008; Peslak, 2005; Bandara et al., 2010). One critical element of BPM is process modeling and simulation. Modeling involves the encoding of a process using standard notation; its importance has been widely recognized and the factors for its success have been identified in numerous academic studies (Bandara et al., 2005; Davies et al., 2006, Law and Kelton, 2000; Ray, 2004; Warren et al., 1995). Simulation involves the analysis of a process model under varying parameters (such as activity times, resource numbers and cost, or demand). Modeling and simulation are becoming powerful instruments for analyzing complex business processes and improving their performance (Davis et al., 2007; Hubbard and Bacoski, 2006; Kiziltas, et al., 2006; Koide et al., 2005; Marrs and Mundt, 2001; van der Aalst and van Hee, 2004; White and Miers, 2008). Simulation enables rapid analysis of process problems and evaluation of improvement/redesign alternatives, and is great medium for illustrating operations management concepts and implications in a dynamic environment. Given the growing interest of industry for simulation, understanding its mechanics, uses, and limitations is becoming an essential skill for business students (Laguna and Marklund, 2013). As a result, simulation is now being used in academia to enhance the effectiveness of BPM teaching (Roussev and Rousseva, 2004). And more complex business simulations enable students to understand the integrated nature of organizations and gain decision-making and leadership skills that can be applied in practice (Lainema and Lainema, 2007; Siewiorek et al., 2012). The analysis of the content and pedagogy of BPM courses has been lagging behind the demand for them. Published work on this subject has compared process modeling tools and techniques with methodologies ranging from ontological analysis to representational analysis and their combinations (Gregoriades and Sutcliffe, 2008; Recker et al., 2009; Siau, 2004). In some recent studies, process modeling has been found by students to be valuable in understanding business process mapping, information gathering, quality improvement and process reengineering (Rozman et al. …