Digital Twin of an Organization: Are You Serious?

Digital twins are becoming established tools for physical devices and systems. Their success has raised the promise and the “grand challenge” of digital twins of organizations. To the extent that organizations include networks of interdependent processes, human agency and conflict, and learning, we argue that building valid, reliable digital twins of organizations involves substantial challenges that might require new methods and new science as compared to current models of business processes. For instance, we need a richer, more complete vocabulary to describe interdependence and regulatory mechanisms that managers can use to design and intervene in networks of interdependent processes. Models from biological sciences might provide fruitful inspiration, given that regulatory networks play important roles in biological systems. If we are serious about digital twins of organizations, we need to push the boundaries of process methods and process science.