BUSINESS PROCESSES OF HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS: EVOLUTION OF SCIENTIFIC UNDERSTANDING AND CLASSIFICATION CRITERIA

Abstract

This article focuses on the theoretical and methodological substantiation of process management in higher education institutions and the development of a comprehensive classification model for university business processes. The study systematizes the evolution of the process approach, highlighting six key scientific directions: the school of scientific management, total quality management, business process reengineering, standardization within ISO 9000, the national school of process management, and the modern digital stage. A comparative analysis of the «business process» category with related economic and managerial concepts – including management function, operation, procedure, business model, and project – is provided to clarify its analytical boundaries. The authors substantiate a novel definition of a higher education institution’s business process. Unlike existing technologically oriented definitions, this approach integrates transaction cost and human capital theories, focusing on the capitalization of educational and scientific results and the systemic minimization of internal transaction costs. A sector-specific classification framework for university business processes is developed based on seven criteria: role in value creation, management level, scope of coverage, stakeholder interaction, degree of repeatability, automation level, and internal transaction costs. This matrix is fully adapted to the modern institutional, market, and digital environment. The findings demonstrate that this classification forms a reliable analytical foundation for selecting economic, mathematical, optimization, and simulation models aimed at the quantitative evaluation, monitoring, and structural optimization of modern universities’ internal process architecture.