A Systematic Mapping Study on Business Process Variability

Business Process Management alignsorganisational strategyand business operation.The dynamicenvironment within which organisations operatepromoteschangesin business processes, in a phenomenonknown asbusiness process variability. The goal of this researchisreviewingbusiness process variabilityliterature tocomprehendthis phenomenon andanalyseits theoretical foundation.Through asystematicmapping study,80 primary studiesactedas sources of evidence to answerthreeresearch questions. Bysummarizingthistheoretical background, weestablish a conceptual synthesis ofbusiness processvariability.Weequallydescribe business process variability approaches and observewhether these wereempirically assessed. Finally, we discuss research opportunities in the field.Our study showsthat conceptsin business process variabilitydomainare used in aninconsistentmanner, demandinga commonvocabulary.A significant number of approaches is available, but most of them lack empirical studies.Additionally, our findings provide a diagnosis of the major challenges in the field.