Assessment of Factors Influencing Business Process Harmonization

A Case Study in an Industrial Company

J. J. M. Trienekens

, H. L. Romero

and L. Cuenca

Department of MST, Open University, Heerlen, The Netherlands

Department of TFDO, ASML, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

Research Centre on Production Management and Engineering (CIGIP),

Universitat Politècnica de València, Valencia, Spain

Keywords: Case Study, Contextual Factors, Process Harmonization, IT Integration.

Abstract: While process harmonization is increasingly mentioned and unanimously associated with several benefits,

there is a need for more understanding of how it contributes to business process redesign and improvement.

This paper presents the application, in an industrial case study, of a conceptual harmonization model on the

relationship between drivers and effects of process harmonization. The drivers are called contextual factors

which influence harmonization. Assessment of these contextual factors in a particular business domain,

clarifies the extent of harmonization that can be achieved, or that should be strived at. From both qualitative,

as well as some quantitative, assessment results, insights are being discussed on the extent of harmonization

that can be achieved, and on action plans regarding business (process) harmonization and (IT) integration.

1 INTRODUCTION

The interest in process harmonization by researchers

and practitioners has increased in the last years

(Fernandez and Bhat, 2010), (Romero, 2014). The

process of harmonization is considered as the

elimination of differences and inconsistencies among

processes in order to make them uniform or mutually

compatible (Pardo et al, 2012). Harmonization of

processes will lead to effective robust business

processes (Siviy et al, 2008), cycle-time reduction

and overall operational efficiency (Kumar and

Harms, 2004). With process harmonization different

business process domains can be integrated, their

efficiency and performance can be improved. E.g. the

reduction in the number of process variants decreases

the costs of process maintenance and increases the

agility towards process changes (Manrodt and

Vitasek, 2004). However, recognizing similarities

and differences between processes and identifying

harmonization opportunities is difficult, in particular

when dealing with processes in a multi-model

environment. Therefore, a trade-off has to be

distinguished between the costs and the benefits of

striving at totally harmonized business process

domains or allowing the business domains, and their

processes, to have local relevant variations (Tregear,

2010). In (Romero, 2014) a conceptual harmonization

model is presented on the relationship between

drivers and effects of process harmonization. These

drivers are called contextual factors. Assessment in a

particular business domain, clarifies the extent of

harmonization of business processes that can be

achieved. This paper presents the application of the

mentioned harmonization model in a case study in

industrial practice, i.e. at DEKRA, an international

certification body in The Netherlands. DEKRA is

confronted with challenges regarding performance

problems and inefficiencies in their testing and

certification services. In conformance with their

international business strategy, standardization,

integration, and improvement are key strategic terms

on the higher management levels of the multi-national

company. Currently, one of the main questions is to

what extent business process domains can, or should

be, harmonized. Improvement projects in the recent

past have shown that company-wide or even process

domain-wide, improvement projects are time-

consuming and limited regarding their effectiveness.

The objective of the case study is three-fold: first, to

investigate whether the conceptual harmonization

model can be made operational in an industrial case

study; second, to assess the contextual factors, which

influence the extent of harmonization that can be

achieved in the particular situation; and third, to

Trienekens J., Romero H. and Cuenca L.

Assessment of Factors Inﬂuencing Business Process Harmonization - A Case Study in an Industrial Company.

DOI: 10.5220/0005748601030110

In Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS 2016), pages 103-110

ISBN: 978-989-758-187-8

derive so-called focus areas for business (process)

improvement. The structure of this paper is as

follows. Section 2 introduces the conceptual harmoni-

zation model. In Section 3 the case study

characteristics will be addressed. Section 4 presents

the application and the validation of the conceptual

harmonization model. Sections 5 and 6, i.e. lessons

learned and discussion, finalize the paper.

2 THE CONCEPTUAL MODEL

The first part of the model, see Figure 1, distinguishes

three different levels in the organizational context:

external, internal and immediate. Each level includes

a set of contextual factors. The second part presents

six aspects of process harmonization which can be

differentiated when evaluating the level of

harmonization of business processes. These aspects

have been derived from a set of indicators, as

described in literature to measure the level of

harmonization. Their interrelations with the

contextual factors have been empirically investigated

in case studies. The conceptual model suggests that

when analyzing the effect of contextual factors, one

should not only consider harmonization of a process

as a whole, but also consider harmonization of

particular aspects of a process. The third part

concerns the elements of business performance that

are affected by changes in the level of process

harmonization, but this part is out of scope of this

paper. See for more details on this part (Romero,

2014).

Figure 1: A conceptual model on process harmonization.

In this paper, our focus is on the first and second

part of the model, which concerns the effect of

contextual factors on different aspects of process

harmonization. The external factors characterize the

business network in which the organization operates

and that are beyond the control of an individual

organization. Three external factors were identified:

cultural differences, different regulations and power

distance. (Ang and Massingham, 2007) discussed the

greater the ‘cultural differences’, the greater the

difficulty in knowledge transfer across cultures.

There are mandatory and unavoidable variations that

come from ‘differences in regulations’ such as

financial regulations, taxation regimes, import/export

regulations and employment practices (Tregear,

2010). ‘Power distance’ refers to differences in the

relationship among firms in inter-firm collaborations.

Organizations with low power distance have a higher

level of integration, i.e. harmonization, of their

business practices, while those with medium and high

power distance had a low level of integration. Internal

factors describe the internal environment of an

organization. Seven internal factors are included in

our model. It is expected in literature that a higher

‘number of locations’ decreases the level of process

harmonization. However, the effect of multiple

locations is not straightforward because it is mixed

with other factors, such as ‘legal requirements’,

‘personal differences’ among individuals performing

the same tasks in different locations and ‘cultural

differences’ (Tregear, 2010). The second internal

factor is ‘IT governance centralization’. This factor

leads to a higher level of harmonization, but in some

cases the initial investment needed to centralize, e.g.

IT infrastructure, is too high, and savings that can be

achieved through process harmonization do not

balance this investment (Buchta et al, 2007). ‘Product

type’: more differences in products and services may

require variation in the processes that create, deliver

and maintain them (Tregear, 2010), suggesting a

decrease in the expected level of process

harmonization. ‘Maturity level’: it has been observed

that organizations which perform better in their

harmonization initiatives, have at least a moderate

level of process maturity (Rosenkranz et al, 2010).

‘Organizational structure’ was also identified as an

internal factor that exerts an influence in the level of

harmonization (Girod and Bellin, 2011). Regarding

the factor ‘organizational structure’, two dimensions

have been identified from literature, respectively

centralization and formalization (Romero, 2014).

The aspects of centralization include: personal

participation in decision making, hierarchy of

authority, and departmental participation in decision

making. Regarding organizational structure

formalization four aspects are identified, including:

job codification, job specificity, rule observation and

written communication. The last internal factor is the

number of ‘mergers and acquisitions’ that have taken

Strategic

• Global integration

• Business value

• Outsourcing

success

• Profit growth

•Risk growth rate

Operational

• Efficiency

• Effectiveness

• Quality

• Responsiveness

• Time

+/-

Business

performance

Tactical

• Costs

• Service level

Level of

harmonization

Data

Resources

Activities

Information

technology

Management

Different regulations

Product type

External

Internal

IT Governance centralization

Maturity level

Cultural differences

Power distance

Number of different locations

Number of mergers and acquisitions

Organizational structure

Immediate

Level of structuredness

Contextual factors

+/-

Personal differences

Control-flow

place in the organization. This factor definitely

decreases the level of harmonization of business

processes, by increasing the number of process

variants that coexists. The harmonization of these

variants consolidates processing volumes and allows

the organization to exploit economies of scale.

Finally, the immediate factors define the process

under study, including: level of structuredness and

personal differences. "Non routine processes are less

applicable to harmonization than routine processes”

(Rosenkranz et al, 2010). An argument to support this

statement is that different parts of a process need to

be open for creative decision making, while others

have to meet legal requirements of different

countries. There are also unstructured, unmeasured

and unrepeatable processes that can lead to a low

level of harmonization (Lillrank, 2003). The potential

of a process to be successfully harmonized also

depends on personal differences such as level of

experience and knowledge of the people involved in

the process. The lack of interpretative assessment via

employees during a process suggests that

harmonizing this process is possible and leads to a

successful harmonization process. Regarding the six

main harmonization aspects of business processes:

activities refer to the level of harmonization of

specific steps in the process. Control-flow measures

the level of harmonization of the sequence of

activities. Data measures the level of harmonization

of input and output data used in the process.

Information technology refers to the level of

harmonization of IT systems. Management measures

the harmonization of the process assessment, and

resources refer to the level of harmonization of

human resources involved in the process (Tregear,

2010).

3 CASE STUDY

3.1 Case Study Characteristics

Within the DEKRA business unit of Industrial

Services, DEKRA Certification is active in three

business domains, respectively Product Testing &

Certification (e.g. certification of medical devices,

consumer goods), Systems Certification (e.g. work

safety, environmental and quality management

systems), and Certification of Persons (which focuses

on the independent testing and certification of

technical and management staff in various business

areas. The scope of the case study is on the business

process domains of Systems Certification (SC), and

the Certification of Persons (CP). The main business

process within the SC domain includes order

preparation, planning, auditing, corrective ac-tions

and invoicing. These are carried out for the following

SC services, respectively: (initial) certification,

surveillance, recertification and decertification. The

SC services result e.g. in certification of management

systems (ISO9001 certificates), certification of

quality management in hospitals (Dutch HKZ

certificates) and certification of guidelines for

construction companies (BRL certificates). CP has on

a high abstraction level, i.e. the main business

process, similar activities as SC, but is oriented on

different types of services. In the CP domain the

subjects to be tested and certified are not quality

management systems, but technical and management

staff in various technical business domains. These

technical experts need to be assessed periodically,

with respect to their skills and knowledge on work

safety, e.g. in the energy supply domain. The basis for

certification in the CP domain is the independent,

reliable and fair examination of persons. The

examinations are based on so-called certification

schemes which reflect (international) criteria for

certification. Although DEKRA Certification is

responsible for the examination, these processes are

being outsourced to independent examination

institutes. In the CP domain the services include on

the one hand the quality insurance of the

examinations, the knowledge, expertise and behavior

of examiners, the examination locations, and on the

other hand the analysis of examination results, and the

certification of persons. Over the last years the

number of certified persons in the CP domain has

increased rapidly, largely due to the energy market

where safety is becoming an issue of increasing

importance. Various certification processes for

persons have been developed under time pressure and

often independently from each other. Part of the CP

processes is currently separately managed by

different product experts and certification managers.

Although there are similarities between the SC and

the CP process domains, and also within both

domains, the differences are increasing. In order to

investigate directions for improvement, it was

decided to assess the extent of harmonization that can

be achieved, or that should be strived at, in the

particular business domains.

3.2 Case Study Methodology

The case study distinguishes a preparation phase, a

data collection phase and a data analysis phase. In the

preparation phase the case study scope has been

determined (i.e. SC and CP), the processes and their

differences and similarities have been investigated

and the information sources have been defined. The

objective of the preparation is to understand the

existing processes. Due to the fact that the process

descriptions of SC and CP differ, it was needed to

model the current processes into a similar (BPMN)

format to get a consistent reference frame for the

interviews. Regarding data collection two types of

information sources have been used: documents and

interviews. The documentation included business

presentations and process descriptions of the SC and

CP business processes. Interviews have the benefit to

specifically focus on the case study topic. The

interviews were conducted using a pre-defined

questionnaire (Romero, 2014). The questionnaire

consists of three parts, respectively questions on

organizational characteristics, questions to assess the

contextual factors under study and questions to assess

the process structuredness. The first part is on

characteristics such as company type, size and age.

This information can be used for comparison of data

from previous or subsequent case studies. The second

part of the interview assesses the contextual factors.

Appendix 1 presents as an example the specific close-

ended questions regarding the organizational

structure (centralization and formalization) that were

used to assess this factor and the Likert scales used,

(Romero, 2014). The Appendix shows also the

calculation of the assessment results of the factor

organizational structure. The close-ended questions

facilitate the comparability of data and of the data

with previous literature. Also combined questions

have been used, i.e. questions that start with a close-

ended part and based on the choice made, additional

explanations in an open-ended format are asked. The

use of semi-structured interviews in this case study is

motivated by the fact that this type of inquiry is

exploratory and the interviews should allow for

unexpected information, e.g. on assessment factor

interpretations of the interviewees. While choosing

the right type of interview is crucial, also the selection

of the proper interviewees is critical. Considering the

case study’s research questions, we selected as key

informants respectively experienced managers of the

certification processes (i.e. product/service

managers) and experienced operational certification

experts (i.e. lead auditors). In the data analysis phase

the assessment results have been analyzed and

subsequently discussed and validated in workshop

sessions with the four interviewees. In this phase also

propositions, from previous case studies (Romero,

2014), on the interrelations between contextual

factors and harmonization aspects have been used to

derive conclusions. Subsequently per contextual

factor, improvement actions have been defined and

presented to the general management at DEKRA

Certification. In the next section the case study results

are presented and discussed.

4 THE CASE STUDY RESULTS

First we will reflect on the business process

investigation which preceded the assessment of the

contextual factors influencing harmonization. Then

we will present the results of the application of the

harmonization model. Subsequently we will address

how actions for business process improvement have

been defined.

4.1 Investigation of the Business

Processes

The SC and CP processes have been analyzed, e.g.

regarding the modeling languages used, the types of

documents and their formats. The similarities and

differences, have been discussed and validated with

experienced managers in the particular DEKRA

business domain. In the context of this case study we

point to the following findings from the investigation.

In the SC domain, certification services are carried

out that are slightly different from each other, i.e. the

different types of quality management system

certifications (e.g. ISO, HKZ). However, the CP

domain has emerged over the last five years with

many new certification services which show many

differences, both in structure and language. Although

there exist on a high level of abstraction one main

process model for certification (with defined

activities), the SC and CP processes differ with

respect to modeling language used, levels of detail in

process elaborations, and document formats (i.e.

work instructions, procedures). SC and CP also have

different monitoring and control units. In SC

monitoring and control is highly centralized (in a so-

called Project Office). In CP this is different with

many decentralized control units for the distinct

certification services. Regarding the monitoring and

control in the SC domain a ‘Plan board’ application is

being used. However, this application system does

not support the processes of the CP domain. Further,

only the SC processes are modeled and visualized by

process flows in the Quality Management System

(QMS), an information system that serves as a

support for the various certification experts (auditors,

product experts and certification managers). The CP

domain lacks visualized processes and the QMS only

contains CP standard document formats, procedures

and work instructions. These findings from the

process investigations were considered as a useful

process reference framework for the execution of the

semi-structured interviews.

4.2 Assessment of the Factors

Four semi-structured interviews have been carried

out, i.e. two interviews with product/service

managers and two with lead auditors. In the following

we will, for each of the contextual factors, present and

discuss the results of the assessment. To illustrate the

analysis and the way we came to our conclusions, we

will refer in the following for one of the internal

contextual factors, i.e. organizational structure, in

more detail to the collection of data and the

calculation of the results from the close-ended

interview questions.

Regarding the external contextual factors,

‘Cultural differences’ are considered as a factor

which is of importance in case the scope of

harmonization covers more countries or regions.

However, this case study focuses at the particular SC

and CP domains at DEKRA Certification. Both

domains are monitored and controlled from one

central management level at DEKRA Certification.

Knowledge transfer on systems certification and

certification of persons mainly takes place within the

company in The Netherlands. As a consequence the

contextual factor ‘Cultural differences’ does not

influence the extent of harmonization that can be

achieved. Regarding the factor ‘Different

regulations’, the DEKRA domains SC and CP should

meet different types of standards and requirements,

e.g. as specified by the Dutch Council for

Accreditation. For example, the processes of CP

should meet the requirements defined in ISO/IEC

17024:2012, such as the security of examination data

and the independability of examination processes. SC

should meet other ISO/IEC standards, such as

ISO9001 with respect to the quality monitoring and

control of business processes and management

systems. As a consequence the SC and CP processes

show differences, both between and within the

domains, and there is a danger of ending up with

multiple variations of both SC and CP certification

processes. Therefore, the factor ‘Different

regulations’ influences negatively the extent of

harmonization that can be achieved.

Regarding ‘Power distance’ both the SC and CP

process domains are, at the highest management

level, being monitored and controlled by the same

management team. However with respect to the

management of the SC certification processes the

differences in customer relations cause differences in

planning and control. In the SC domain particular

customer types are allowed, to some extent, to

determine the planning and the scheduling of the

certification projects. Auditing and certification, in

particular the timing aspects, are here to a large extent

tailored to the needs and the wishes of the customer.

However in the CP domain, auditing and certification

processes are planned and scheduled only by the

management team. These kinds of differences in

‘Power distance’ influence negatively the extent of

harmonization that can be achieved at DEKRA

Certification.

Regarding the internal contextual factors, both the

SC and CP process domain are located at the same

industrial area in The Netherlands. So, the factor

‘Number of different locations’ is ‘low’. It also

appeared that both domains are able to exchange

auditors for particular types of auditing projects.

Regarding the factor ‘IT governance centralization’ it

became clear that although decision making

regarding IT alignment at DEKRA is formally

centralized, the IT landscape shows a rather scattered

picture. The SC and CP process domains are partly

supported by different systems, even in similar

functional areas. This causes that, although IT-

governance is formally centralized, there is a negative

influence, from the scattered IT-landscape, on the

extent of harmonization that can be achieved.

Regarding the factor ‘Product type’, the domains SC

and CP have different products (i.e. services) and

customers in different market segments. E.g.

certification of business systems only makes use of a

restricted set of certification schemes, while for the

certification of persons many (i.e. >50) certification

schemes are being used. Also product/service

innovation has different characteristics in both the SC

(e.g. long-term, generic) and CP domain (e.g. mid-

term, specific). It was concluded that different roles

in both the SC and the CP domain are not yet

sufficiently defined and implemented. As a

consequence the factor ‘Product type’ influences

negatively the extent of harmonization that can be

achieved. The ‘Maturity level’, led to different scores

for the SC and the CP domain. In the SC domain a

process maturity level 3 was reached, e.g. based on

the formal and stable system certification procedures

in this domain. However in the CP domain, the

process maturity reached is between level 1 and 2.

This is caused by the fast growth of the domain over

the last five years, and the large diversity of new

certification schemes developed. As a consequence it

was concluded that the restricted ‘Maturity levels’

influence negatively the extent of harmonization that

can be achieved. Regarding the factor ‘Organizational

structure’, and its two dimensions centralization and

formalization, the Appendix reflects some detailed

assessment results to illustrate the close-ended

questions as well as the calculation of the scores. The

factor has been assessed on the basis of 11 sub-

questions on centralization and 14 sub-questions on

formalization. The 5-point Likert scale scores and the

4-point Likert scale scores, both derived from

literature, are normalized in the Appendix. The score

for centralization is 0.47, which is moderate. It could

be concluded that there is an average hierarchical

network that does not influence negatively the extent

of harmonization. Looking at the score for

formalization, i.e. 0.59, it was concluded that

formalization could be classified as above average. In

total, based on the assessment results of both

centralization and formalization, the influence of

Organizational structure centralization on the extent

of harmonization that can be achieved was concluded

to be positive. Regarding the factor ‘Number of

mergers and acquisitions’ DEKRA Certification can

be considered as a company that has a restricted

activity in this type of managerial practices. Over the

last five years, only one small and medium sized

enterprise has been acquired and merged. This

indicates that the number of new and different process

variants, and IT systems, that had to be integrated or

implemented is limited. Based on the IT governance

centralization analysis in the foregoing, it was

concluded that the factor ‘Number of mergers and

acquisitions’ doesn’t influence the extent of

harmonization that can be achieved.

Regarding the immediate contextual factors, the

‘Level of structuredness’ is based on process aspects

such as the repeatability of processes and creativity

needed in decision making. In particular the SC

domain the processes are, to an above average level,

standardized. The DEKRA main process model acts

for SC as a generic model from which specific

repetitive processes can be derived. The Level of

structuredness in the SC domain influences positively

the harmonization of processes. However in the CP

domain the situation is different. The various domains

of certification, the variety of certification schemes,

and the fast increase of certification schemes over the

last years has led to a rather low ‘Level of

structuredness’. Because of the quite large differences

in the two process domains SC and CP it was

concluded that overall the factor negatively

influences the extent of harmonization. Regarding

‘Personal differences’, DEKRA can be considered as

a company with differences in audit and certification

experiences and knowledge. In particular in the CP

domain a particular knowledge regarding the

examination and certification of persons is required.

Also the quality assurance of automated examination

systems requires a specific expertise and qualification

of the auditors. In the SC domain the required

expertise and knowledge is oriented at quality

management and business systems. These ‘Personal

Differences’ lead to the conclusion that this factor

negatively influences the extent of harmonization.

Table 1 gives a summary of the foregoing discussion.

Table 1: Influences of factors on harmonization.

Contextual factor

Influence

Cultural differences

None

Different regulations

Negative

Power distance

Negative

Number of locations

None

ITG centralization

Negative

Product type

Negative

Maturity level

Negative

Organizational structure

Positive

# Mergers and

acquisitions

None

Level of structuredness

Negative

Personal differences

Negative

4.3 Assessment

In this section we will summarize the discussed

assessment results for each of the factor categories

and we will present briefly the harmonization actions

that have been defined at DEKRA Certification, both

on processes as a whole, as on particular aspects (i.e.

Activities, Resources, Data, Control-flow, Informa-

tion technology and Management). From the

interviews it appeared that the external contextual

factor ‘Different regulations’ has a negative effect on

the extent of harmonization that can be achieved. For

DEKRA Certification these standards have to be

taken as given, and they cannot be adapted or tailored

by a certification body. In particular the periodically

upgrade of standards by International Standardization

Organizations requires extra effort from certification

bodies to stay compliant. The assessment results lead

to decisions for two harmonization aspects,

respectively: Resources and Management. It was

decided to define a harmonization project in that

resources, i.e. lead auditors from both the SC and the

CP domain will start collaboration on the

interpretation, the implementation and the

maintenance of the various international certification

stand-ards. Further, it was decided that in particular

the management of knowledge sharing and

standardization of certification activities would be

implemented to strive towards a more harmonized

business situation. From the assessment results on the

internal contextual factors, the factors ‘Maturity

level’ and ‘IT Governance centralization’ show clear

negative influences. Harmonization actions defined

pointed to the harmonization aspects of respectively

‘Information technology’ and ‘Management’. A

project has been defined on the integration and

standardization of the various IT applications in the

SC and CP domain, as well as the monitoring and

control (i.e. management) on the IT Governance

level. The internal contextual factor ‘Organizational

structure’, respectively centralization and

formalization, shows a positive influence regarding

the extent of harmonization that can be achieved.

However, the internal contextual factor ‘Product

type’ influences harmonization negatively and leads

to warnings regarding a too high ambition level.

Harmonization actions defined point to the

harmonization aspects ‘Activities’ and ‘Resources’.

Based on this a joint-project has been defined in the

SC and CP domain, to identify criteria for the

adoption and development of new services, i.e. the

implementation of new certification schemes. The

project should lead to a limitation in the variety of the

certification activities and the skills and knowledge

that is needed, as well as an improvement of the

coherence in the resources and the certification

activities.

The immediate contextual factors ‘Levels of

structuredness’ and ‘Personal differences’, internally

and directly related to the SC and CP processes under

study, show both negative influences on the extent of

harmonization that can be achieved. The SC and the

CP process domains have independently been

managed and have different growth curves with

respect to standardization of processes. In particular

in the CP domain the fast business growth and

increase in certification schemes, has led to an

unstructured variety in processes, procedures and

work-instructions. Harmonization actions defined,

pointed clearly to the harmonization aspects

‘Activities’, ‘Control-flow’ and ‘Data’. Consequent-

ly a project has been defined to cover these aspects.

First, the development of so-called Project Office

activities in the CP process domain has been defined.

Project Office activities bundle the expertise and

streamlines the planning and control-flows of the

certification services. These process improvements

will reduce the throughput time, as auditors are

supported by a Project Office and can focus on their

job. Next to these new activities in the process

models, the procedures and the documents of CP are

also rewritten into the same data format as for SC.

Advantages include a higher consistency in the

quality of the process out-comes, e.g. customer

reports.

5 LESSONS LEARNED

The conceptual model on contextual factors and

harmonization aspects can be made operational in an

industrial environment, and can be used as a valuable

assessment tool. An operationalization of this

conceptual model led to interesting assessment

results. The influences of the factors on

harmonization became clear, in particular in the

discussions with the selected involved practitioners.

Consequently, agreements with respect to different

types of improvement actions, in terms of concrete

projects on different harmonization aspects (e.g.

resources, activities, etc.), could be defined. Thus, the

application of the conceptual harmonization model

has resulted in consensus in the company on a

concrete action plan, e.g. with respect to information

systems integration and has proven its value in the

particular business situation. Further, the understan-

ding of the factors influencing harmonization, could

be used as a valuable input for trade-off decisions.

6 CONCLUSIONS

A single qualitative case study methodology was

adopted in this study to identify relations between

contextual factors and the level of harmonization.

Although interesting and important, the emergent

findings are idiosyncratic or related to this single case

study. To strengthen the propositions, it is strongly

recommended to apply a multiple case study

methodology. Such a methodology enables

comparisons between, preferably more quantitative,

case study results and can identify consistencies in

factor-harmonization aspect relationships. Although

the paper points to IT project development the

implementation of systems are out of scope of this

paper, since these will only become available on the

mid- and long-term. However, the implementation

actions have already become part of the DEKRA

business development plan and will be evaluated

periodically.

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APPENDIX

Some Detailed Assessment Results

Centralization Interviewee 1 Interviewee 2 Interviewee 3 Interviewee 4 Averages

Index of participation in decision making (5-point Likert-scale)

0,50 1,00 0,00 0,25 0,44

0,00 1,00 0,00 0,00 0,25

0,25 0,75 0,50 0,75 0,56

0,75 0,50 0,00 0,25 0,38

0,41

Index of hierarchy of authority (4-point Likert-scale)

0,67 0,67 0,67 0,33 0,58

0,67 0,33 0,33 0,33 0,42

0,33 0,00 0,33 0,33 0,25

0,33 0,33 0,67 0,33 0,42

0,42

Departmental participation in decision making (5-point Likert-scale)

0,75 0,25 0,75 0,50 0,56

0,75 0,75 0,75 0,25 0,63

0,59

Group average Centralization 0,47

Formalization

Index of Job codification (4-point Likert-scale)

1,00 0,33 0,33 0,67 0,58

0,33 0,67 0,00 0,67 0,42

0,33 0,33 1,00 0,33 0,50

0,33 0,33 0,67 0,33 0,42

0,00 0,67 0,67 0,33 0,42

0,47

Index of rule observation (4-point Likert-scale)

0,67 0,33 0,33 0,67 0,50

1,00 0,67 0,33 0,33 0,58

0,54

Index of Specificity of job (4-point Likert-scale)

0,67 0,33 0,67 0,67 0,58

0,67 0,67 0,67 0,67 0,67

1,00 0,67 0,67 0,67 0,75

0,67 0,67 0,67 0,67 0,67

0,67

Written communication (5-point Likert-scale)

0,75 0,75 0,75 0,50 0,69

0,69

Group average Formalization 0,59

Employees participate in decisions involving their work environment.

Employees participate in decisions involving your work.

The frequency of written communication in your organization is high.

Whenever we have a problem, we are supposed to go to the same person for an answer.

We are to follow strict operating procedures at all times.

The organization keeps a written record of everyone's job performance.

Going through the proper channels is constantly stressed

Everyone has a specific job to do.

Whatever situation arises, we have procedures to follow in dealing with it.

The employees are constantly being checked on for rule violations.

People here make their own rules on the job.

People here are allowed to do almost as they please.

How things are done here is left up to the person doing the work.

A person can make his own decisions without checking with anybody else.

I feel that I am my own boss in most matters.

People here feel as though they are constantly being watched to see that they obey all the rules.

How frequently do you usually participate in the decision to hire new staff?

How frequently do you usually participate in decisions on the promotion of any of the professional staff?

Any decision I make has to have my boss's approval.

I have to ask my boss before I do almost anything.

Even small matters have to be referred to someone higher up for a final answer.

A person who wants to make his own decisions would be quickly discouraged here.

There can be little action taken here until a supervisor approves a decision.

How frequently do you participate in the decisions on the adoption of new programs?

How frequently do you participate in decisions on the adoption of new policies?