From 2009 to 2012, culture was examined as an important factor in business process management in the context of Theresa Schmiedels dissertation.

The research on this topic was structured in three parts:

1. Explaining the relation between culture and BPM
2. Specifying the concept of BPM culture
3. Developing a tool to assess the cultural fitness of organizations for BPM

Both academics and practitioners from around the globe were involved in several studies to address the research topic.

The BPM-Culture-Model as one of the results of these studies explains the relation between culture and BPM: BPM is a management approach which comes along with specific values which facilitate this approach, i.e. a BPM(-supportive) culture. Thus,
BPM culture can be understood as a to-be culture. However, at the start of BPM initiatives, organizations face a given cultural context, which consists of complexly intertwined group cultures such as national, organizational, and work group cultures. This cultural context reflects the as-is culture. Against this background, a cultural fit between BPM culture and cultural context is required to successfully implement a BPM approach in organizations. Figure 2 illustrates this explanation.

Figure 2: BPM-Culture-Model (Schmiedel et al., 2012)