Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to assess whether the business
process management (BPM) approach contributes to applying systemic
characteristics in organisations. Design/methodology/approach - This is a
theoretical and descriptive work based on a review of the literature on
BPM and systemic approach. Findings - From the analysis of its stages,
it was possible to find a strong correspondence between BPM and the
systemic characteristics found in the literature. Practical implications
- The paper presents practical implications to professionals as well as
academics. The contribution to the body of knowledge on BPM derives
from the identification of systemic characteristics in it, thus
justifying its practical application to organisations in order to ensure
better systemicity and adaptability. As processes are directed to the
same goal, unnecessary and misdirected steps are redesigned or
eliminated, concentrating resources on core processes and improving the
organisation's performance. The paper also contributes to education,
since the systemic approach may be a key subject to clarify the
inter-relationships among processes, and processes and their contexts.
Originality/value - The originality resides on elucidating the systemic
characteristics of BPM, being academically valuable for justifying the
studies about such an approach, besides contributing to the
characterisation of its basic assumptions as well. In addition, the
value of the present work for business management resides in the
identification of a practical approach which can be applied to
organisations in order to ensure them systemicity and flexibility.