Process support is a core organisational competence which aims to help people plan and perform their work. This thesis addresses process support for Emergent Knowledge Processes (EKP). EKP can be characterised by human-orientation, emerging domain requirements, compliance requirements and dispersed participants/stakeholders. Current Process Aware Information Systems (PAIS) do not meet several important support requirements of EKP. Addressing these requirements will create business value. Through a Design Science (Hevner, March et al. 2004) research approach, this thesis addresses that problem. An approach to support EKP is conceptualised and implemented. The main contribution is a prescriptive framework. The framework consists of four components; interactive modelling, a combination of procedural and declarative models, flexible model management and real-time collaborative working. Interactive modelling is an approach to flexible process support where users create, adapt, analyse and enact visual models of their work processes. Underpinning the interactive modelling approach are both procedural and declarative models. Declarative models capture organisational rules. Procedural task-based models capture actual plans of work. Procedural models must comply with the rules established in the declarative models. Flexible model management and real-time collaboration support offer a cooperative working and knowledge management environment for interactive modelling. The conceptual design ideas have been realised in an academic software prototype. A Web-based groupware application, D2P, was developed as a 'plug-in' for the collaborative, Web-based modelling environment PowerMeeting. It is shown how Web technology can be leveraged for collaborative process support. A contribution is made through further demonstration of the applicability of Web-based solutions for professional, process related business requirements. As a final contribution, the results of a usability study demonstrate the usability of the D2P and PowerMeeting tools. Empirical evidence in the form of results from a usability study and user questionnaire confirmed that semi-skilled users with a small amount of training can activate the concepts and tools which make up the approach. Of particular importance is the demonstration of the usability of the less familiar declarative modelling paradigm. Scenarios are also provided to demonstrate the applicability of the approach.

La modélisation de processus est, depuis plusieurs années, utilisée en entreprise pour représenter et maîtriser l’organisation et les flux d’informations. Parallèlement, la structure et les besoins des entreprises ont évolué : de plus en plus souvent, les mêmes processus métier sont déployés pour une entreprise donnée mais dans des environnements différents.Les organisations ont donc besoin de modéliser et déployer un même ensemble de processus métier dans des environnements divers tout en les adaptant le mieux possible aux spécificités de chacun de ces environnements.La méthode V BPMI s’inscrit dans cette problématique de la flexibilité des processus. Elle préconise notamment d’adopter une double orientation intentionnelle (en caractérisant formellement un processus par l’objectif qu’il permet d’atteindre) et contextuelle (en décrivant formellement les divers environnements dans lesquels un processus peut être déployé et mis en œuvre de façon pertinente). Cette méthode introduit principalement les concepts de lignes de processus, identifiées par des buts, et de variantes de processus, discriminées par des contextes, afin de supporter la flexibilité. Des opérateurs et un langage de modélisation et d'adaptation de processus, V BPMN, sont également proposés. Par ailleurs deux démarches sont définies pour guider la définition et l'adaptation de processus flexibles. De plus, la méthode s’appuie sur un modèle de connaissances et est supportée par une architecture, V BPME et un prototype.Pratiquement, cette méthode, élaborée dans le cadre d’un partenariat avec l’AP HM au sein du projet PERICLES, a été présentée et testée en collaboration avec des pharmaciens de l’AP HM. / Modeling business processes allows enterprises to abstract and understand business workflows from many years. In the same time, business requirements and enterprise behaviors evolved: more and more, business processes are deployed for an organization but in several different environments. Thus, such structures need to model and deploy their business processes in several specific environments and in an adaptive way to care about these specificities. This issue concerns the flexibility of the business processes and their adaptation to the variability of environment in which they are deployed.The V BPMI method considers this purpose of the process flexibility by considering an intentional orientation (with a formal description of the goal a business process reaches) and a contextual orientation (with a formal description of the environment in which it is relevant to deploy and execute an adapted business process). This method introduces the process lines, identified with a business goal, and process variants, discriminated with a formal context, as major concepts for the flexibility support. It introduces too some operators and a process modeling and adaptation language, V BPMN. In addition, two approaches for flexible processes definition and adaptation are proposed. Moreover, the V BPMI method relies on a knowledge model and is supported by an architecture, V BPME, and a software prototype.In fact, this method, developed in collaboration with the AP HM within the PERCILES project, has been introduced and tested with pharmacists, with a focus on the drug circulation process.