[AISWorld] CfP - Sustainability - Special Issue on "Business Process Automation and Innovation"

[Ralf Plattfaut]

+++ Apologies if you receive multiple copies of this email. Please
distribute to interested parties +++

 

Dear colleagues,

 

We are kindly inviting submissions to the special issue on “Business Process
Automation and Innovation” in Sustainability.

 

Sustainability is an open access journal, indexed within Scopus and SSCI/Web
of Science and ranked C according to VHB-Jourqual 3.

 

All details of the call can be found here:
https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability/special_issues/Business_Process_
Automation_and_Innovation and below this email.

 

Deadline is 30th of April 2023 – we welcome early submissions.

 

Kind regards,

 

Ralf 

 

+++ CFP +++

Business processes constitute a core concept in modern management. They can
be understood as “a collection of inter-related events, activities, and
decision points that involve a number of actors and objects, which
collectively lead to an outcome that is of value to at least one customer”
(Dumas et al., 2018, p. 6). Their optimization in terms of automation and
innovation is of tremendous importance for organizations.

In the last decade, sustainability has become a crucial goal for the
optimization of business processes (Seidel et al. 2014, vom Brocke et al.
2012). First, processes themselves need to be sustainable. Second,
capabilities for process automation and innovation need to be sustainable.
Third, the effects of an increasing automation of business processes also
have effects with regards to sustainability goals. These sustainability
goals cover all three bottom lines of the triple bottom line model (i.e.,
economic, environmental, and social goals).

Digital means create more opportunities for the automation and innovation of
business processes. However, we also see that these digital means have an
impact on the sustainability of both organizations in general and business
processes in specific. For instance, processes using Robotic Process
Automation are prone to failure when the underlying core systems change
(Syed et al., 2020), or process mining in healthcare runs the risk of
compromising the privacy of patients (Pika et al., 2020). Alternatively,
exogenous shocks in the environment require a higher degree of process
innovation (Röglinger et al. 2022). 

As such, more research on the intersection of sustainability and business
process automation and innovation is needed.

In this call, we motivate research at the intersection of sustainability and
business process automation and innovation. We welcome research from all
traditions, different theoretical perspectives, and across different
contexts. We are open to all methodological and theoretical approaches.
Topics of interest include (but are not limited to) the following:

*	Sustainable and green business process management;
*	Methods to innovate business processes with a focus on (economic,
environmental, and social) sustainability;
*	Conceptual process modeling for sustainably competitive business
processes;
*	Using process automation to increase process sustainability;
*	Building sustainable capabilities for process automation and
innovation;
*	Analyzing the effects of process automation on different
sustainability measures (e.g., the triple bottom line);
*	Using process mining and analytics to understand the sustainability
impact of processes and process changes.

We look forward to receiving your contributions at any time—early
submissions to the Special Issue are warmly welcomed. Feel free to contact
us before your submission to assure it fits in the Special Issue.

Ralf Plattfaut
Amy Van Looy