This paper proposes a conceptual taxonomy of architectures for workflow management systems. The systematic classification work is based on a framework for workflow architectures. The framework, consisting of generic-level, conceptual-level and implementation-level architectures, provides common architectural principles for designing a workflow management system. We define the taxonomy by considering the possibilities for centralization or distribution of data, control, and execution. That is, we take into account three criteria. How are the major components of a workflow model and system, like activities, roles, actors, and workcases, concretized in workflow architecture. Which of the components is represented as software modules of the workflow architectureulcorner And how are they configured and operating in the architectureulcorner The workflow components might be embodied, as active (processes or threads) modules or as passive (data) modules, in the software architecture of a workflow management system. One or combinations of the components might become software modules in the software architecture. Finally, they might be centralized or distributed. The distribution of the components should be broken into three: Vertically, Horizontally and Fully distributed. Through the combination of these aspects, we can conceptually generate about 64 software Architectures for a workflow management system. That is, it should be possible to comprehend and characterize all kinds of software architectures for workflow management systems including the current existing systems as well as future systems. We believe that this taxonomy is a significant contribution because it adds clarity, completeness, and global perspective to workflow architectural discussions. The vocabulary suggested here includes workflow levels and aspects, allowing very different architectures to be discussed, compared, and contrasted. Added clarity is obtained because similar architectures from different vendors that used different terminology and techniques can now be seen to be identical at the higher level. Much of the complexity can be removed by thinking of workflow systems. Therefore, it is used to categorize existing workflow architectures and suggest a plethora of new workflow architectures. Finally, the taxonomy can be used for sorting out gems and stones amongst the architectures possibly generated. Thus, it might be a guideline not only for characterizing the existing workflow management systems, but also for solving the long-term and short-term architectural research issues, such as dynamic changes in workflow, transactional workflow, dynamically evolving workflow, large-scale workflow, etc., that have been proposed in the literature.