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The purpose of this paper is to explore empirically the interaction effect of process performance measurement and the process owner role on organizational performance.

Using a sample of Austrian manufacturing companies, the paper uses multivariate data analysis techniques to test the joint effect of process performance measurement and process ownership on firm performance.

The empirical evidence indicates that implementing process performance measurement or the process owner role only is insufficient to achieve high performance. Organizations must implement both concepts – process performance measurement and the process owner role – to reap the fruits of process management.

Several research limitations apply. First, the sample only included Austrian manufacturing firms. The generalizability of the findings to other industries or other countries is open to scrutiny. Second, only one interview per firm was conducted. Interviewing several managers per firm would have led to even higher data quality. A third important limitation of this work is the small number of cases in the regression models. Such a small number of cases are not appropriate for a clear demonstration of empirical effects. Fourth, this work relies on survey data, which leaves open the possibility of self‐serving bias in the data.

The promise of process management is to help firms gain competitive advantage, and, as such, managers facing organizational problems may adopt process management practices as a response to these problems. But managers must fully understand the concept of process management to ensure these practices are used in the appropriate contexts. Managers must understand the multidimensional nature of process orientation and the importance of its key dimensions. The empirical evidence of the study suggests that managers should put their effort into establishing process owners as well as process performance measurement as both process management concepts are needed in order to achieve firm performance improvements.

While the importance of process management has often been highlighted, much more remains to be understood about the performance impact of specific process management practices. This paper focuses on the process owner role and process performance measurement – as empirical studies investigating the interaction effect of these two practices have been remarkably limited to date.

Attention to processes has increased, as thousands of firms have adopted the process view of their organization. Process orientation (PO) means focusing on business processes rather than emphasizing functional structure or hierarchy. Despite the huge growth in the business process management literature, a methodological gap still remains about a certain ambiguity in the definition of the construct specifying its theoretical domain and dimensionalization. The aim of this paper is to contribute to the literature on PO through the creation and validation of a model to measure the key dimensions of the PO construct.

The authors derive from literature several dimensions which shape the concept of PO. In a second step, the study includes factor analysis on a sample of 152 Austrian manufacturing companies to verify that the model is empirical valid.

The paper provides insight in the concept of PO. It concludes that PO is a multidimensional construct, consisting of the following dimensions: design and documentation of business processes; management commitment towards PO; the process owner role; process performance measurement; a corporate culture in line with the process approach; application of continuous process improvement methodologies; and process‐oriented organizational structure.

The sample used in this work only included Austrian firms operating in manufacturing industry. Generalizability of the findings to other industries or other countries is open to scrutiny.

Several studies into process management use proxy variables as an indicator for PO (e.g. ISO 9000 certification). Other studies treat the construct as a unidimensional measure. However, unidimensional measures meet with increasing criticism, as they turn out to be insufficient to capture the richness of such a complex construct. This paper attempts to rectify the content deficiencies in the literature on the construct by specifying its theoretical domain and dimensionalization.