The business process re-engineering (BPR) phenomenon originated in the United States and has recently gained widespread international corporate popularity. Unfortunately, the results of such information technology-enabled change efforts often fall short of expectations. The importance of cultural factors to BPR outcomes and the rising global economic role of Japan create a need to consider this deliberate and radical form of intervention from a cross-cultural perspective. This article examines the meaningfulness of re-engineering in the Japanese cultural context. A number of cultural-sensitive measures are used to examine a set of constructs. The role of management information, the nature of intra-organisational relationships and preferences among organisational development models are considered in order to compose a set of propositions for further research and to provide process change management insights for practitioners. The significance of this considered cultural transformation is discussed in the context of Japanese business process re-engineering.