How to integrate technology-enhanced learning with business process management Nicola Capuano, Matteo Gaeta, Pierluigi Ritrovato and Saverio Salerno Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose an innovative approach for providing an answer to the emerging trends on how to integrate e-learning efficiently in the business value chain in medium and large enterprises. Design/methodology/approach – The proposed approach defines methodologies and technologies for integrating technology-enhanced learning with knowledge and human resources management based on a synergistic use of knowledge models, methods, technologies and approaches covering different steps of the knowledge life-cycle. Findings – The proposed approach makes explicit and supports, from the methodological, technological and organizational points of view, mutual dependencies between the enterprise’s organizational learning and the business processes, considering also their integration in order to allow the optimization of employees’ learning plans with respect to business processes and taking into account competencies, skills, performances and knowledge available inside the organization. Practical implications – This mutual dependency, bridging individual and organizational learning, enables an improvement loop to become a key aspect for successful business process improvement (BPI) and business process reengineering (BPR), enabling closure of, at the same time, the learning and knowledge loops at individual, group and organization levels. Originality/value – The proposed improvements are relevant with respect to the state of the art and respond to a real need felt by enterprises and further commercial solutions and research projects on the theme. Keywords Project management, Human resource management, Learning Paper type Conceptual paper Introduction The wealth of companies has progressively shifted from tangible assets (capital, resources, etc.) into intangible assets (knowledge, motivation, etc.), so, in order to raise the competitiveness of companies, it is extremely important to develop advanced workforce training solutions that are more adjusted to the continuous change in the competitive conditions in which companies are immersed. For this reason, technology-enhanced learning (TEL) is a primary need in modern enterprises. Unfortunately the delay between the identification of an enterprise learning need and the actual learning purposed to fill the competency gap is still too large. According to Lindstaedt and Zimmerman (2006): ‘‘right now most learning issues are dealt with by the human resources department, that’s not necessarily the best department for this function [. . .] company-based learning needs to be embedded in business needs, so when a company changes its processes or procedures, the employee-training required to execute the changes develops in parallel’’. More generally speaking (Davenport, 2005) there is today a performance gap in TEL due to its limited capacity to be integrated within enterprise business processes. A better integration of TEL with business process management is in fact one of the greatest challenges for today’s knowledge management. Also, according to Trondsen (2004) PAGE 56 j JOURNAL OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT j VOL. 12 NO. 6 2008, pp. 56-71, Q Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 1367-3270 DOI 10.1108/13673270810913621 Nicola Capuano, Matteo Gaeta, Pierluigi Ritrovato and Saverio Salerno are all based at the Universita ` di Salerno, Fisciano, Italy.