Emergent Behavior and Uncertainty in IoT-Enhanced Business Processes: Challenges and Future Directions

Computer Science > Emerging Technologies [Submitted on 28 Aug 2026] Title:Emergent Behavior and Uncertainty in IoT-Enhanced Business Processes: Challenges and Future Directions View PDF HTML (experimental)Abstract:IoT-enhanced business processes are characterized by high complexity due to heterogeneous actors, varying levels of autonomy among participating systems, continuously evolving execution contexts spanning the digital and physical worlds, and continuous event streams. In such settings, process behavior partially emerges only at runtime through complex interactions involving humans, IoT devices, physical objects, software systems, agents, and services. This complexity introduces partial observability, uncertainty, and runtime dynamics that are difficult to anticipate and that challenge traditional business process management (BPM) assumptions and systems. We discuss these challenges from three perspectives, addressing 1) uncertainty representation, 2) operationalization of IoT-enhanced processes, and 3) runtime management of emergent behavior. Based on a motivating scenario and an analysis of the state of the art, we identify open research gaps and outline short-, medium-, and long-term recommendations to shape a research agenda on emergent behavior in IoT-enhanced business processes. References & Citations Loading... Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv (What is alphaXiv?) CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers (What is CatalyzeX?) DagsHub (What is DagsHub?) Gotit.pub (What is GotitPub?) Hugging Face (What is Huggingface?) ScienceCast (What is ScienceCast?) Demos Recommenders and Search Tools Influence Flower (What are Influence Flowers?) CORE Recommender (What is CORE?) arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs.