Abstract–the present survey mainly aims at analysing determinants of possibilities of improving processes in an organization. The early fragments of the study are devoted to a theoretical analysis of determinants of the process management and its connection with the project management. Then the assumptions of the survey on the impact of the organizational structure and culture on possibilities of applying business process management were presented. The verification of theoretical deliberations and survey assumptions is included in the last part of the article presenting the initial results of the obtained survey and the resulting conclusions. Key words–business process management, organization structure, organization culture. I. INTRODUCTION HE basic objective of the present article is an attempt to define the meaning of the organization structure and culture for the purposes of streamlining the business process management within it. Numerous Polish and foreign publications [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7] define process management in the wide and narrow scopes. The wide scope shows it as a discipline comprising activities identifying, evaluating and analysing the existing processes performed in an organization and their fit for accomplishment of strategic objectives of the organization, It is the base for improvement, optimization, modification or designing new processes (within projects). In the narrow scope – it is a formalized sequence of systematic, measurable steps concerning management of individual business processes in the organization by means of: intuition, explicit and tacit knowledge, inborn and acquired skills, internal (e.g. employees) and external (e.g. customers) stakeholders; theoretical – methodical solutions in the scope of management (change, quality, time, scope, budget management) and related social sciences (economy, sociology, psychology) etc., tools for analysis and tools for process improvement as well as implementation techniques together with process innovations and projects introducing change on the enterprise level; information technologies – supporting the processes, modelling and designing the organization and allowing design and implementation of IT systems using the process management solutions in the management practice of the organization set in a specific economic environment; oriented and changeably (dynamically) conditioned by: the organizational structure (bidirectional relation structure - processes – more efficiently implemented in a proper organizational structure allowing to monitor, analyze and improve the processes; a specific strategy of the organization (relation structure - T processes – more efficiently implemented than through competition on a given market), where proper relations result from combining the results of the processes with Key Performance Indicators (KPI); the organizational structure – with the possibility of questioning the inviolability and optimum of the present state, which serves a basis of a possibility of improving the organization, including also transferring and distributing tacit knowledge through a social component of corporate portals and sharing it with other employees of the organization. From the practical point of view the relations between processes and projects are also essential. At present determinism, explicitness and statics in defining features and results of projects move towards probability calculus, indeterminacy and dynamism. In theory the span between two basic kinds of activities recognized in the contemporary organization: projects and processes should increase. After all projects were defined – as unique, one-time undertakings requiring proper preparation – while processes are repeatable and may be subject to automation or become routine activities. The main difference is the fact that processes are performed permanently and by nature are repeatable, although they can proceed in an unpredictable and changeable way depending on impulses coming from their environment, and projects are performed when new needs occur, and each of them is totally different. But relations between process management and project management have bilateral dimension. On one side process management is treated just as a technique of streamlining project performance. But on the other hand – in a sense – projects are subsets of processes – they are all processes that we could define as non-routine (change-oriented), innovative, pragmatic, burdened with a big risk and unique. This results from peculiar similarities – both kinds of activity are performed by marked out teams of people, determined by specific and limited in time resources, following the rule of planning, steering, supervising and controlling particular acts. This in turn makes the changes within process management have a direct impact on project management. Projects are performed in order to improve the existing processes, create totally new processes and solve specific problems connected with the necessity to change processes (isn’t it a component of process management?). In each organization there are both process and project activities. Contrary to its classic definition, projects basically do not end. Each end of one project is the beginning of another, in essence they sometimes create a never-ending cycle of Witold Chmielarz University of Warsaw Faculty of Management ul. Szturmowa 1/3, 02-678 Warszawa, Poland Email: witek@mail.wz.uw.edu.pl Marek Zborowski University of Warsaw Faculty of Management ul. Szturmowa 1/3, 02-678 Warszawa, Poland Email: mzborowski@mail.wz.uw.edu.pl Aneta Biernikowicz BOC Information Technologies Consulting al. Jerozolimskie 109/26, 02-011 Warszawa, Poland Email: aneta.biernikow- icz@boc-pl.com Analysis of the importance of business process management depending on the organization structure and culture Proceedings of the 2013 Federated Conference on Computer Science and Information Systems pp. 1079–1086 978-1-4673-4471-5/$25.00 c  2013, IEEE 1079