Surges and sediments: shaping the reception of reengineering

The business community is continuously confronted with allegedly new concep ts. These are often temporarily intensely advocated, yet are at the same ri me likely to be portrayed as transitory or 'faddish' phenomena. To trace th e reception of these concepts, this paper examines the Dutch discourse on b usiness process reengineering (BPR). Instead of showing a single transitory pattern, empirical evidence revealed a complex and multifaceted dynamic. T hough BPR has been propagated extensively, it has been exploited as an umbr ella to encompass divergent organizational insights. At the same time, the reception pattern of the concept varied significantly across distinct socia l contexts. Particularly, BPR had a significant and sustained impact within the Dutch IS community. Although the concept has been criticized since its inception, it has undoubtedly induced discourse that has been used widely to shape contemporary IS problems and solutions. As a result, this concept has played a significant role in the dissemination and understanding of org anizational knowledge. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.