Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) is a prevalent topic in recent research and business, seemingly taking the position of a disruptive technology that has the potential to significantly transform industries ranging from productivity (e.g., ChatGPT-4) to creativity (e.g., DALL-E). While the emerging scientific discussion on GAI covers a variety of fields and issues, such as privacy, accuracy, and application scenarios, this paper sheds light on the business side of GAI by investigating the morphologic nature of start-ups and incumbents leveraging GAI. Based on the structured analysis of 100 real-world instances, we report on a taxonomy of GAI applications and services that advances our practical understanding, strengthens the distinguishability, as well as adds clarity to the discourse of GAI potentials. We provide an initial framework and five types of GAI, namely Generator, Reimaginator, Synthesizer, Assistant, and Enabler, that are informed by the core characteristics of the technology paradigm.

The role of artificial intelligence in daily life is constantly advancing and has become an important topic of discussion. With music and its lyrics being a vehicle to express topics of society, this paper investigates how artificial intelligence is perceived by musicians and reflected in their songs. By analyzing the lyrics of over 1,200 songs over three decades, this work applies sentiment analysis to extract polarities and emotions. The results provide insights into how musicians view and reflect the impact of artificial intelligence on society and how this is reflected in their song texts. The findings show an increase in songs mentioning artificial intelligence-related terms, with a trend of more songs implying negativity, such as anger. However, minor increases in positive emotions indicate musicians' ambivalent views on hopes and fear of artificial intelligence.

Abstract
In this paper we present a long-term research project that started in 2011. Language Engineering for
Multi-Level Modeling (LE4MM) combines research on fundamental challenges of conceptual modeling
and software engineering with the design and implementation of a tool environment. This interplay
between research and development has proved very fruitful. Notwithstanding, running a research project
over a period of more than 10 years, especially when it involves software development, faces a number
of specific challenges. While the main focus of the paper is on research questions and findings, we will
also present lessons learned in the project

The modern world is confronted with grand challenges, such as those codified by the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. As single organizations are often not capable of addressing a broad set of goals on their own, they are increasingly concerned with creating ecosystems. This is also the case in the domain of e-commerce. Owners of focal platforms in e-commerce ecosystems have the power to implement sustainability initiatives and therefore need to be equipped with an overview of possible initiatives and actionable guidance. To unbox how e-commerce ecosystem participants consider sustainability, we conducted a multi-case study with 99 initiatives collected from sustainability reports. We found that (1) sustainability initiatives particularly focus on reducing inequality and managing climate change as well as (2) manufacturers, sellers, and service providers are the most involved ecosystem participants. Based on our findings, we (3) synthesized six categories of sustainability initiatives as measurements.

Machine learning (ML) has the potential to take on a variety of routine and non-routine tasks in brick-and-mortar retail and e-commerce. Many tasks previously executed manually are amenable to computerization using ML. Although procedure models for the introduction of ML across industries exist, the tasks for which ML can be implemented in retail need to be determined. To identify these application areas, we followed a dual approach. First, we conducted a structured literature review of 225 research papers to identify possible ML application areas in retail, as well as develop the structure of a well-established information systems architecture. Second, we triangulated these preliminary application areas with the analysis of eight expert interviews. In total, we identified 21 application areas for ML in online and offline retail; these application areas mainly address decision-oriented and economic-operative tasks. We organized the application areas in a framework for practitioners and researchers to determine appropriate ML use in retail. As our interviewees provided information at the process level, we also explored the application of ML in two exemplary retail processes. Our analysis further reveals that, while ML applications in offline retail focus on the retail articles, in e-commerce the customer is central to the application areas of ML.

The identification and satisfaction of user needs in business-to-consumer ecommerce is crucial to elicit positive experiences and establish loyalty toward the business. One major interface to the consumer is the website of the business, which can impact the user and customer experience throughout the whole journey. Current approaches that aim to measure user experience (UX) and related constructs have significant shortcomings and are often not able to uncover spontaneous processes in website users. Related neuroIS research proposes that a great part of behavior is formed by these spontaneous processes and that the utilization of additional, neurophysiological measurements can help to uncover these processes and better understand user behavior. Therefore, and to address the shortcomings of common UX measurements in ecommerce, this cumulative thesis presents 6 essays along different UX phases being pre-use, during-use, and post-/repeated-use of the ecommerce website. As a means to assess the spontaneous, potentially unconscious processes, the neuroimaging method fNIRS is utilized in the included essays. Across all papers, several responses to website design factors across UX phases could be identified on the neural level. The complementing self-reported data could reveal these effects only to a certain degree. Consequently, this thesis shows the contribution of neuroimaging (fNIRS) to UX investigation on ecommerce websites to better understand users, which helps to optimize website design and thus, UX.

Although our digitalized society is able to foster social inclusion and integration, there are still numerous communities having unequal opportunities. This is also the case with deaf people. About 750,000 deaf people only in the European Union and over 4 million people in the United States face daily challenges in terms of communication and participation, such as in leisure activities but more importantly in emergencies too. To provide equal environments and allow people with hearing handicaps to communicate in their native language, this paper presents an AI-based sign language translator. We adopted a transformer neural network capable of analyzing over 500 data points from a person’s gestures and face to translate sign language into text. We have designed a machine learning pipeline that enables the translator to evolve, build new datasets, and train sign language recognition models. As proof of concept, we instantiated a sign language interpreter for an emergency call with over 200 phrases. The overall goal is to support people with hearing inabilities by enabling them to participate in economic, social, political, and cultural life.

As the importance of machine learning (ML) in technology has increased over past years, it is important to understand each application and its implications for ML individually. As a sample application of ML, demand forecasts occupy a special position in industry and retail and are used in numerous optimization activities, such as price optimization. In past years, demand forecasting has transformed the way retailers and industry replenish their goods. From a manual process, forecast-driven replenishment processes are now used. While this process has very few requirements for the ML-based demand forecast, this changes when further processes are transformed. While optimizing prices, demand forecasting requires elasticity regarding optimization objectives. When ML methods are used for demand forecasting, there must be sufficient data to learn the proper elasticity requirements. To overcome the problem of missing historical data resulting in low elasticity and thus bad optimization performance, we present a method for transferring knowledge between articles and companies to train shared ML models. For the first time, we are able to optimize prices without generating historical demand data for all possible prices. Evaluations of a design science project show that federated learning with neural networks achieves good forecasting accuracy and high elasticity.

The financial sector is undergoing a massive transformation, with new technology-driven players challenging established mechanisms and transforming the sector into a fast-moving market. With the gradual transition from a scale economy to a platform-driven network economy, enterprise networks are gaining strategic importance. Despite the growing interest in fintech’s, research has so far lacked a conceptualization of value creation in fintech ecosystems. Therefore, this research paper aims to analyze key players, value creation activities, and value streams based on the analysis of the business models of payment services, personal financial management, robo-advisory, peer-to-peer lending, trading, and cryptocurrency. We present a holistic value network for the fintech ecosystem based on structured literature review and analysis of 171 fintech companies. We were able to show that fintech platform orchestrates multiple market sides and that customers take four distinct roles at the center of the ecosystem when using fintech services.

Theory is an essential part of design research and helps us to explain what we see or guide what we design. In the paper, we shed light on how kernel theories are used in developing design principles in Design Science Research (DSR). We do this by reporting on a systematic literature review, from which we have extracted a set of six mechanisms to operationalize kernel theory. Each mechanism consists of an activity (e.g., “transform to” or “derive from”) and an application point (e.g., meta-requirements or design principles) representing wherein the chain of concepts the kernel theory was used. The paper reflects on what we have learned about the use of kernel theories and translates this into recommendations and issues for further research. We provide researchers with guidance to use kernel theories more efficiently and give a big picture of the possibilities of kernel theory operationalization.

Multi-level modeling (MLM) facilitates the design of modeling languages because foundational language concepts (defined with “linguistic” metamodels) can be reused on any classification level and consequently frees the developer from the burden of re-specifying these concepts each time a new language is designed. This strength of MLM can be used profitably in teaching since it enables students to specify languages with relatively little effort with associated tool support. However, MLM introduces new features that require existing methods to be extended with user support and which introduce verification challenges. This paper describes these challenges with respect to teaching modeling languages and outlines approaches to address them.
 

A process of a multi-level model creation follows typically the topdown approach, i.e., it requires first defining concepts and relations on the highest classification levels, which only then can be used to create concepts on the lower ones. Empirical insights into the process of multi-level model creation suggest however, that this strategy may be counter-intuitive and challenging, especially for non-experts. This paper addresses this problem by focusing on the idea of flexible multi-level model creation, understood as an intertwined application of top-down and bottom-up strategies. As a first step towards realizing this vision for multi-level models in general, and those created with the XModeler and Flexible MetaModeling and Execution Language (FMMLx) in particular, in this paper, we select a set of relevant multi-level refactoring patterns, adapt them to our approach, and implement them in the supporting tool. We illustrate the flexible creation process using an exemplary scenario.
 

Die Entscheidungen im Marketingmix und besonders jene über Preis und Platzierung waren im Handel stets von enormer Bedeutung, aber bisher wenig automatisiert oder datengetrieben. Dies liegt darin begründet, dass es bisher keine Notwendigkeit dafür gab und ein Mangel an informationstechnischen Möglichkeiten limitierend wirkte. Aufgrund der zunehmenden Online-Affinität der Kunden und der dort nun schon seit einigen Jahren zu beobachtenden Preisvariationen hat sich dort ein anderes Preisgeschehen etabliert. Die vorgestellte Fallstudie zeigt auf, wie bisher nicht verfügbare Daten erfasst und genutzt werden können, um mit der Verknüpfung der Variablen Preis und Platzierung neuartige Entscheidungen zu treffen. Dennoch bleiben die Komplexität und Menge an Entscheidungen im Single-Channel-Handel auf wenige Entscheidungen begrenzt. Sobald nun aber mehrere Kanäle im Omni-Channel …

While standardized enterprise systems (ES) have become widely accepted, this is not the case for machine learning (ML) implementations, which are mostly developed individually in company-specific projects. Necessary historical data and rare ML capabilities result in a low cross-market ML utilization. To overcome the high usage barriers of ML, it should be incorporated into ES in a standardized manner. Therefore, we propose to implement an ML marketplace. While marketplaces in ES already exist, this paper proposes a marketplace dedicated to the exchange of ML models in a federated learning approach. Accordingly, this work formulates four meta requirements based on interviews, which are structured by marketplace governance dimensions. With these meta-requirements, an ML marketplace was implemented in a design science research project, from which eight design principles are derived. The design principles address governance dimensions for making ML accessible to many companies and allow them to integrate ML into existing ES.

This paper presents prototypical multi-level models of two uses cases. They comprise models of business processes and of models that represent the context required to execute a business process. On the one hand, the context consists of the organizational units that are responsible for the execution of processes. They are represented by a model of organizational structures. On the other hand, the context includes the artifacts that are needed or manipulated by processes. The models serve to demonstrate the specific power of multi-level modeling. First, they integrate models on higher levels, which correspond to domain-specific modeling languages, with those on lower levels. In addition, models are supplemented with objects on L0 to demonstrate how these can be integrated. The models are executable without the need to generate code, since models and corresponding program code share the same representation, thus demonstrating the possibility of advanced application system architectures, which allow users to navigate a comprehensive representation of the system they work with at runtime. The presentation of the models is supplemented with a general evaluation of multi-level concepts. The design of the models was inspired by the EMISA process challenge. Therefore, they are evaluated against the requirements defined with the challenge. In addition, a challenge is discussed that goes beyond the challenge, that is, the design of multi-level models of behavior.

Platform ecosystems have captured a variety of markets, enabling coordination, transactions, and value co-creation between independent actors. A focal platform constitutes the central nexus of e-commerce ecosystems and fosters the interaction among ecosystem participants through their boundary resources. Standardizing these interfaces simplifies ecosystem entry for developers and increases the number of participants propelling the network effects, and thus the overall value of the ecosystem. Currently, there is a lack of prescriptive design knowledge guiding platform owners in designing successful e-commerce ecosystems. Addressing this issue, we followed a dual approach, reporting on a systematic literature review in which we identified design requirements and complemented these with a multiple-case study on selected e-commerce ecosystems. Aggregating the requirements resulted in six meta-requirements and 19 design principles that foster the standardization of focal e-commerce platforms. Our design principles simplify the development of complements and enable multi-homing for developers due to possible standardization across ecosystems.

Platform ecosystems have captured a variety of markets, enabling coordination, transactions, and value co-creation between independent actors. A focal platform constitutes the central nexus of e-commerce ecosystems and fosters the interaction among ecosystem participants through their boundary resources. Standardizing these interfaces simplifies ecosystem entry for developers and increases the number of participants propelling the network effects, and thus the overall value of the ecosystem. Currently, there is a lack of prescriptive design knowledge guiding platform owners in designing successful e-commerce ecosystems. Addressing this issue, we followed a dual approach, reporting on a systematic literature review in which we identified design requirements and complemented these with a multiple-case study on selected e-commerce ecosystems. Aggregating the requirements resulted in six meta-requirements and 19 design principles that foster the standardization of focal e-commerce platforms. Our design principles simplify the development of complements and enable multi-homing for developers due to possible standardization across ecosystems.

Der Einsatz von IT-Systemen ist omnipräsent. Im Gegensatz zur Verbreitung der Systeme werden die Wirkungen der Systeme für Individuen, Unternehmen oder Gesellschaften selten betrachtet. Damit dürften viele Nutzer und Unternehmen von der Wirkung der Investition überrascht werden. Die Gefahr fehlerhafter Investitionen nimmt zu und mögliche Potenziale der IT bleiben ungenutzt.

Das Buch vermittelt wissenschaftlich fundiertes Wissen über die Wirkung und Wirtschaftlichkeit von IT-Systemen. Aufbauend auf Grundlagen aus der Organisationslehre, Soziologie, Entscheidungstheorie, Kosten- und Leistungsrechnung wird diskutiert, welche Phänomene durch IT-Systeme induziert werden. Die mannigfaltigen Wirkungen von IT-Systemen sowie Verfahren zur Wirkungsermittlung werden beschrieben. Sämtliche Aspekte für ein holistisches Wirkungsmanagement von IT-Systemen von der Projektskizze bis zur Umsetzung in der Realität werden in einem neuen Ansatz integriert.

Formulating design principles is the primary mechanism to codify design knowledge which elevates its meaning to a general level and applicability. Although we can observe a great variety of abstraction levels in available design principles, spanning from more situated to more generic levels, there is only limited knowledge about the corresponding (dis-)advantages of using a certain level of abstraction. That is problematic because it hinders researchers in making informed decisions regarding the (intended) level of abstraction and practitioners in being oriented whether the principles are already contextualized or still require effort to apply them within their situation. Against this backdrop, this paper (1) explores different abstraction levels based on a sample of 69 design principles from the chatbot domain as well as (2) provides a preliminary positioning framework and lessons learned. We aim to complement methodological guidance and strengthen the principles' applicability, leading to knowledge reuse.

Increasing digitization and the associated tremendous usage of technology have led to data of unprecedented quantity, variety, and speed, which is generated, processed, and required in almost all areas of industry and life. The value creation and capturing from data presents companies with numerous challenges, as they must create or adapt appropriate structures and processes. As a link between corporate strategy and business processes, business models are a suitable instrument for meeting these challenges. However, few research has been conducted focusing on data-based monetization in the context of data-driven business models so far. Based on a systematic literature review the paper identifies five key components and 23 characteristics of data-driven business models having crucial influence on data-based value creation and value capturing and thus on monetization. The components represent key factors for achieving commercial benefits from data and serve as guidance for exploring and designing suitable data-driven business models.

This expert voice paper presents a comprehensive rationale ofmulti-levelmodeling. It aims not only at a systematic assessment of its prospects, but also at encouraging applications of multi-level modeling in business information systems and at providing a motivation for future research. The assessment is developed from a comparison of multi-levelmodelingwith object-oriented, general-purpose modeling languages (GPMLs) and domain-specific modeling languages (DSMLs). To foster a differentiated evaluation, we propose a multi-perspective framework that accounts, among others, for essential design conflicts, different types of users, as well as economic aspects. Besides the assessment of the additional abstraction offered by multi-level modeling, the evaluation also identifies specific drawbacks and remaining challenges. Based on the results of the comparative assessment, in order to foster the adoption and further development of multi-level modeling, we discuss the prospects of supplementing multi-level modeling languages with multi-level programming languages and suggest possible dissemination strategies customized for different groups of users. The paper concludes with an outline of future research.

An important economic sector influenced by the development of platforms is e-commerce. The most successful companies in e-commerce employ platform business models and strive to provide other companies with application services. Despite growing economic importance and rising research interest, thus far, no attempts were made to structure existing research into platforms in e-commerce. Hence, a quantitative bibliometric analysis of 7,463 platform-related papers in the context of e-commerce was conducted. The papers were published in major conferences, journals, and books from 1993 to 2021. The authors identified a continuous development of platform research in e-commerce, with the continuous development characterized by three major periods of research. Furthermore, four clusters in platform research are outlined, i.e., business models, social commerce, infrastructure, and socio-technical characteristics. These clusters can serve as a foundation for future research. The conducted bibliometric analysis contributes to scientific research by offering an objective and systematic overview of platform research in e-commerce.

Inthisresearchreport,wepresentanewversionofITModelingLanguage(ITML).Itis
integratedwiththefamilyofDomain-SpecificModelingLanguages(DSMLs)thatarepart
ofMulti-PerspectiveEnterpriseModeling(MEMO).Thedesignofthelanguagefolloweda
provenmethod.Itprovidesforanalysingrequirementsbasedontheanalysisofpossibleuse
scenarios.TheITMLwasspecifiedwiththemetamodelinglanguageMEMOMML.Duetothe
considerablesizeofthemetamodel,itspresentationissplitintoseveralpartialmetamodels,
whicharedescribedatalevelofdetailthatisrequiredfortheimplementationofthelanguage
withinamodelingtool.Thepresentationofthemetamodelissupplementedbydiscussionsof
designconflictsandrelateddecisions.Inadditiontotheabstractsyntaxandsemantics,which
arerepresentedbythemetamodel,wealsoproposeaconcretesyntax,whichwasdesigned
withthesupportofagraphicdesigner.Finally,wealsoprovideashortdiscussionofprincipal
limitationsofconventionalmetamodelingaswellasanoutlookonourfutureresearch.
Keywords:ITmanagement,enterprisemodeling,ITinfrastructure,ITML,MEMO,multi-level
modeling.

In recent years, the catchword “low‐code” has evolved into what can be seen as a major trend
in software development platforms. A growing number of vendors respond to this trend by
offering software development platforms that promise limited need for coding only and a tremendous
boost in productivity. Both aspects have been the subject of intensive research over
many years in areas such as domain‐specific modeling languages, model‐driven software development,
or generative programming. Therefore, the obvious question is how ʺlow codeʺ
platforms differ from such approaches and what specific performance features they offer.
Since there is no unified definition of “low‐code”, the only way to develop an elaborate understanding
of what it is – and might be – is to analyze the actual use of the term. For obvious
reasons, it is not promising in this respect to rely on marketing announcements made by vendors.
Instead, it seems more appropriate to examine “low‐code” platforms. This research report
presents a study of 10 relevant platforms, capturing and assessing common characteristics
as well as specific features of individual tools. The study is guided by a method that consists
of a conceptual framework, which provides a uniform structure to describe and compare “lowcode”
platforms, and a process model that describes the sequence of steps.

Understanding the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is crucial to contribute to sustainable development including the most fundamental challenges of our society, such as climate change, healthy lives, and inclusive economic growth. As Information Systems (IS) research has a great tradition of investigating how technology and methods can be employed to foster sustainability, this study follows widely accepted expectations that AI will boost this. Against this backdrop, the present study aims at revealing how and what purposes IS researchers use AI for sustainability. Based on a literature corpus of 95 articles, promising research in diverse fields has been found that underlines the great potential of IS in achieving economic, ecological, and social sustainability. In doing so, this study complements recent research streams on AI and sustainability from a IS perspective by providing a comprehensive overview of themes, topics, and clusters addressed within IS literature and discussing future avenues for research.

Studierende für einen Studiengang zu gewinnen, die die richtigen Erwartungen an und ausgeprägtes Interesse für das jeweilige Studienfach haben, stellt eine besondere Schwierigkeit dar, wenn das Fach nicht Teil des allgemeinbildenden schulischen Lehrplans ist. In Nordrhein‐Westfalen  (NRW) gilt dies nicht zuletzt  für das Studienfach Wirtschaftsinformatik. An der Universität Duisburg‐Essen wurde daher ein Schulbotschafter‐Programm für Wirtschaftsinformatik etabliert, welches auf die gezielte Information der studieninteressierten Oberstufenschülerinnen und ‐schüler in NRW gerichtet ist. Der vorliegende Forschungsbericht veröffentlicht die Vorgehensweise, Ergebnisse und Limitationen einer in diesem Kontext durchgeführten online‐Befragung von 313 Oberstufenschülerinnen und ‐schülern. Die Ergebnisse zeigen ein differenziertes Bild präferierter Informationsangebote und ‐veranstaltungen. Die ausgewerteten Antworten zum Studienfach Wirtschaftsinformatik machen darüber hinaus deutlich, dass fehlende bzw. fehlerhafte Vorstellungen über das Fach weit verbreitet sind und – für eine effektive Unterstützung bei der Studienwahl – die Ansprüche und Möglichkeiten eines Wirtschaftsinformatikstudiums gezielt zu vermitteln sind.

Das Fach Wirtschaftsinformatik hat schon seit Jahrzehnten einen festen Platz an den Universitäten in Deutschland. Die Nachfrage nach Absolventen des Fachs ist ungebrochen hoch. Gleichzeitig steht die Disziplin vor der Herausforderung, sich gegenüber anderen anwendungsorientierten Informatikstudiengängen und nicht zuletzt gegenüber den an Fachhochschulen immer stärker werdenden praxisnahen Studienangeboten abzugrenzen.

Es gibt bislang kaum Veröffentlichungen, die das Studienfach Wirtschaftsinformatik an Hochschulen in Deutschland empirisch untersuchen. Der vorliegende Forschungsbericht soll diese Lücke füllen, indem er die aktuelle Situation der universitären Wirtschaftsinformatik als Anbieter von grundständigen und weiterführenden Studiengängen in Deutschland beleuchtet. Er nutzt dazu Studierendenzahlen des jüngsten CHE-Rankings und des statistischen Bundesamtes (2016, 2018, 2019). Die Analyse wertet die Studierendenzahlen und Frauenanteile differenziert nach Bachelor- und Masterstudiengängen aus und berücksichtigt dabei auch deren Zugehörigkeit zu bestimmten Fakultäten, zu Bundesländern bzw. Regionen sowie zu bestimmten Hochschultypen.

Im Ergebnis wird ein facettenreiches Bild der in vielerlei Hinsicht heterogenen universitären Wirtschaftsinformatik in Deutschland gezeichnet. Vor dem Hintergrund der gewonnenen Einblicke in die Wettbewerbssituation zur benachbarten Informatik sowie zu alternativen Hochschultypen werden abschließend Forschungsfragen für zukünftige Arbeiten formuliert.

Despite occasional pleas to incorporate the ethics of information systems into the field’s research agenda, the analysis of the moral ramifications of information systems has remained unsystematic in nature. Work on a remarkable variety of ethical issues has appeared, but the field has yet to produce a coherent conception of how it construes and studies the ethics of information systems. In this research-in-progress paper, we report on work to redress the situation by addressing three goals. First, we provide an overview of contributions made to the study of ethics in information systems research in recent decades. Second, we present a classificatory scheme to organize past and future work on the subject. Third, we identify themes that have received little attention to date, proposing routes for future work. In particular, we find that our field has yet to fully explore the moral implications of the very artifacts of its own design. We conclude with a call to action for information systems researchers to work towards a structured account of ethics as part of the field’s research agenda.

The spread of the Internet of Things offers companies the potential to exert a disruptive influence on existing market structures and entire domains. The shift from product to service orientation and the integration of the customer as a value co-creator makes the identification and development of value-adding, IoT-based offerings a central challenge. As a link between strategy and business processes, business models are a suitable tool to meet this challenge. However, present business models lack of consideration of IoT specific characteristics. Against this background we provide a taxonomy for the description of IoT-based business models based on systematic literature research. Furthermore, the taxonomy is applied to 103 business models, demonstrating its usefulness. We also provide insights into the design of business models within two domains. The taxonomy provides a tool for investigating busi-ness models, especially how IoT can be incorporated into them and also a conceptual basis for future research.

Nanotechnology is no longer science fiction. For more than half a century, the manipulation of matter at the atomic level has been an integral part of the methodological framework of a wide range of disciplines, e.g., physics, chemistry, biology. The fusion of nanotechnological approaches with the paradigm of the Internet of Things led to the creation of a new type of smart, internet-connected objects on the nanoscale at the beginning of the last decade under the term Internet of Nano Things. Despite the growing interest in research and practice, however, there is a lack of a basic, methodologically sound classification of methodological approaches and concepts that not only names them, but also shows their characteristics and forms of expression in order to create a common understanding within the domain. To address this shortcoming, the paper presents a taxonomy for IoNT-based systems to provide a conceptual basis for future research.

Im Rahmen der Digitalisierung nehmen smarte Produkte und die darauf aufbauenden intelligenten Dienstleistungen einen immer größeren Platz sowohl im betrieblichen Kontext als auch im Endkundenbereich ein. Auslöser hierfür stellt vor allem die leistungsfähigere und kostengünstigere Hardware dar, welche es Unternehmen ermöglicht, zunehmend Produkte mit intelligenten und vernetzten Komponenten auszustatten. Diese smarten Produkte bieten Unternehmen und Kunden völlig neue Möglichkeiten zur Interaktion, bieten neue Mehrwerte und beeinflussen die unternehmerische Wertschöpfung an sich. Ziel dieses Beitrages ist es, einen Einstieg in das Themenfeld der smarten Produkte und Dienstleistungen zu geben und aufzuzeigen, welche Möglichkeiten diese für den Endnutzer und für Unternehmen eröffnen.

Unveränderter Original-Beitrag Strobel et al. (2019) Von smarten Produkten zu smarten Dienstleistungen und deren Auswirkung auf die Wertschöpfung, HMD – Praxis der Wirtschaftsinformatik 56, 494–513.  https://doi.org/10.1365/s40702-019-00520-x

The business value of IT in companies is a highly discussed topic in information systems research. While the IT business value is an agreed upon term, its decomposition and assessment on a more detailed level is ambiguous in literature and practice. However, assessing the IT business value is pivotal for goal-oriented IT management. Therefore, we suggest a hierarchical decomposition of the IT business value along aggregated impacts and atomic impacts. We introduce a taxonomy to gain a better understanding of what types of atomic impacts may be caused by IT investments. With the help of the taxonomy, we classify a total of 957 values from existing value catalogs and derive 29 archetypal IT impacts grouped by a company’s business units. Bundling this grouping with exemplary impacts for the IT value assessment, we finally propose an IT value meta-framework for the structured business value assessment.

Multi-sided markets (MSMs) have entered the retail sector as digital marketplaces and have proven to be a successful business model compared to traditional retailing. Established retailers are increasingly establishing MSMs and also participate in MSMs of pure online companies. Retailers transforming to digital marketplaces orchestrate formerly independent markets and enable retail transactions between participants while simultaneously selling articles from an own assortment to customers on the MSM. The retailer’s dual role must be supported by the retail information systems. However, this support is not explicitly  represented in existing reference architectures (RAs) for retail information systems. Thus, we propose to develop a RA for retail information systems facilitating the orchestration of supply- and demand-side participants, selling own articles, and providing innovation platform services. We apply a design science research approach and present seven architectural requirements that a RA for MSM business models needs to fulfill (dual role, additional participants, affiliation, matchmaking, variety of services, innovation services, and aggregated assortment) from the rigor cycle. From a first design iteration we propose three exemplary, conceptual architectural patterns as a solution for three of these requirements (matchmaking for participants, innovation platform services, and aggregated assortment).

Graduates of Business Informatics (BI) have excellent job perspectives. The ongoing digital transformation entails the fascinating opportunity for our students to participate in designing future organizations. At the same time, the analysis of statistical data indicates that first-year-student numbers at Germany’s University bachelor programs in BI are relatively low. Personal experience additionally suggests that many first-year-students have no clear idea about BI and their future role in practice. Hence, we assume that already the perception of BI by students at secondary schools is biased by substantial misconceptions. This paper is intended to contribute to the debate on how to raise the awareness of upper secondary school students for BI. Based on an exploratory survey and practical experience through a case study teaching program employed by "school ambassadors", we propose critical success factors for designing initiatives to disseminate a realistic and attractive image of BI and the professional perspectives it enables.

Based on the cultural, social and technological development of the last hundred years, the pursuit of health driven by primal instincts has been transformed in most areas worldwide into a quasi de facto standard. But this security is deceptive. Not only the global developments of the last few months, but also creeping factors such as demographic change or the steadily growing world population are putting increasing pressure on the healthcare system. Today, more and more health care systems based on continuous demand for medical resources are increasingly reaching their limits. Technologies such as the Internet of Things are not a panacea, but offer great potential for increasing the flexibility and efficiency of healthcare systems. However, the development of such IoT-based healthcare systems requires a holistic understanding of the information technology as well as the domain itself. Against this background, the paper presents a domain-specific modelling language for IoT-based healthcare systems

Richard Feynman’s visionary lecture at Caltech, which dates back more than half a century, is regarded as the birth of today's nanotechnology. Over time, many nanotechnology-based approaches, methods, and innovations have been adopted in almost all research disciplines. This nano-centered evolution is currently transforming the traditional paradigm of the Internet of Things into the Internet of Nano Things. However, the focus here is not on the mere adaptation of down scaling and is instead primarily on the effects and characteristics that result from this new scale. To fully exploit these new possibilities and combine them with existing added-value technologies, it is not sufficient to miniaturize existing Internet-of-Things- based systems—they must be developed from scratch. Against this background, this study examines the main areas of nanotechnology in combination with the Internet of Things phenomenon and, based on an exploratory literature search, presents an information system architecture for IoNT-based information systems.

Based on the technological developments of the last few years and the associated digitalisation, the Internet of Things is now an essential part of practically every aspect of life. Smart products with their sensors and actuators are not only boundary objects between the physical and digital world, but also tie both worlds more and more together. The capabilities of the products range from simple monitoring tasks by drones in agriculture to autonomous use in mining. However, in order to exploit the full potential of these capabilities, it is not enough to use individual smart products or sensors, it is necessary to develop holistic IoT-based information systems from the ground up. To take such a systemic perspective, it is essential to have a sound conceptual understanding of the domain and a common language. Against this background, the publication presents a domain-specific modelling language for IoT-based information systems.

Multi-sided markets (MSMs) have entered the retail sector as digital marketplaces and have proven to be a successful business model compared to traditional retailing. Established retailers are increasingly establishing MSMs and also participate in MSMs of pure online companies. Retailers transforming to digital marketplaces orchestrate formerly independent markets and enable retail transactions between participants while simultaneously selling articles from an own assortment to customers on the MSM. The retailer's dual role must be supported by the retail information systems. However, this support is not explicitly represented in existing reference architectures (RAs) for retail information systems. Thus, we propose to develop a RA for retail information systems facilitating the orchestration of supply-and demand-side participants, selling own articles, and providing innovation platform services. We apply a design science research approach and present seven architectural requirements that a RA for MSM business models needs to fulfill (dual role, additional participants , affiliation, matchmaking, variety of services, innovation services, and aggregated assortment) from the rigor cycle. From a first design iteration we propose three exemplary, conceptual architectural patterns as a solution for three of these requirements (matchmaking for participants, innovation platform services, and aggregated assortment).

Music is a central instrument in video gaming to attune a player’s attention to the current atmosphere and increase their immersion in the game. We transfer the idea of scene-adaptive music to car drives and propose SoundsRide, an in-car audio augmented reality system that mixes music in real-time synchronized with sound affordances along the ride. After exploring the design space of affordance-synchronized music, we design SoundsRide to temporally and spatially align high-contrast events on the route, e.\\\\ g., highway entrances or tunnel exits, with high-contrast events in music, e.\\\\ g., song transitions or beat drops, for any recorded and annotated GPS trajectory by a three-step procedure. In real-time, SoundsRide 1) estimates temporal distances to events on the route, 2) fuses these novel estimates with previous estimates in a cost-aware music-mixing plan, and 3) if necessary, re-computes an updated mix to be propagated to the audio output. To minimize user-noticeable updates to the mix, SoundsRide fuses new distance information with a filtering procedure that chooses the best updating strategy given the last music-mixing plan, the novel distance estimations, and the system parameterization. We technically evaluate SoundsRide and conduct a user evaluation with 8 participants to gain insights into how users perceive SoundsRide in terms of mixing, affordances, and synchronicity. We find that SoundsRide can create captivating music experiences and positively as well as negatively influence subjectively perceived driving safety, depending on the mix and user.

Am ICB gibt es mit fünf vollen Professuren eine der deutschlandweit größten Wirtschaftsinformatik-Fachgruppen. Für einen solch großen Forschungsstandort ist die Anzahl der Erstsemesterstudierenden im Bachelorstudiengang Wirtschaftsinformatik (WI) seit einiger Zeit auf einem bedenklich niedrigen Niveau. Dies gilt nicht zuletzt im Vergleich zum konkurrierenden Studiengang Angewandte Informatik – Systems Engineering, der ebenfalls am ICB angeboten wird.

Umfragen unter Studieninteressierten aus NRW deuten darauf hin, dass sie mehrheitlich keine klare Vorstellung oder gar Fehlvorstellungen bzgl. des Studienfachs Wirtschaftsinformatik besitzen (Schauer und Schauer 2021). Um Ansatzpunkte zur besseren Profilierung des WI-Bachelorstudiengangs zu identifizieren, wurden zwei Befragungen unserer WI-Erstsemesterstudierenden durchgeführt (Ende 2018 und 2019). Der vorliegende Forschungsbericht wertet die Antworten der Studierenden aus. Er liefert differenzierte Einblicke u.a. bzgl. ihrer Beweggründe für die Wahl von Essen als Studienort, die Studienfachwahl sowie ihrer Einstellung zum Fach Wirtschaftsinformatik und den wahrgenommenen Herausforderungen eines universitären Studiums. Er fasst wesentliche Ergebnisse der Befragung in Form von Thesen zusammen und leitet Vorschläge für Maßnahmen ab, die geeignet erscheinen, die Wahrnehmung des Studienfachs Wirtschaftsinformatik zu verbessern.

Bei Interesse an dem vollständigen Forschungsbericht wenden Sie sich gerne an die Autorin Carola Schauer

Der vorliegende Beitrag zeigt am Beispiel der betriebswirtschaftlichen Organisationslehre und der Wirtschaftsinformatik auf, dass die Beschränkung auf tradierte disziplinspezifische Perspektiven nicht geeignet ist,den vielschichtigen Auswirkungen der digitalen Transformation gerecht zu werden. Vor diesem Hintergrund werden die Potentiale einer engen, trans-disziplinären Zusammenarbeit dargestellt. Dazu werden zunächst die für einesolche Zusammenarbeit erforderlichen Gemeinsamkeiten herausgearbeitet. Dabei wird insbesondere die Rolle der Sprache gewürdigt. Sie ist sie sowohl zur Untersuchung von Handlungssystemen als auch zur Gestaltung und Nutzung von Informationssystemen von zentraler Bedeutung, entfaltet dabei aber durchaus ambivalente Wirkungen. Darauf aufbauend werden grundlegende Zielkonflikte, etwa zwischen Standardisierung und Fortschritt oder zwischen loser und enger Kopplung betrachtet und Ansätze zur ihrer Entschärfung aufgezeigt. Daneben geht der Beitrag auf die Auswirkungen ein, die induktive Verfahren der „Künstlichen Intelligenz“ auf das Handeln in Unternehmen einerseits, auf die wissenschaftliche Forschung andererseits erwarten lassen –und welche wissenschafts-theoretischen Herausforderungen damit verbunden sind. Auch wenn vorwiegend auf spezifische Forschungsfragen der Organisationslehre und der Wirtschaftsinformatik fokussiert wird, sollte die Untersuchung auch für andere Teildisziplinen der Betriebswirtschaftslehre bedeutsam sein.

A sustainable and climate-friendly energy supply needs flexible and efficient distribution systems. Key factors to implement this kind of systems are intelligent coordination (smart grid approaches) and the integration of different energy sectors. This article introduces the unified energy agent as an agent-based approach for a comprehensive modelling and control of energy conversion systems. This approach enables both the simulation and optimization of coupled energy networks, and then in a next step, the development of corresponding smart grid solutions to be applied in the field. Its applicability for the simulation of coupled networks is presented by a real-world use-case of an innovative combined heat and electrical network, which was implemented for the city of Lemgo, Germany. Preliminary results from the project are discussed and an outlook on future work is given.

Colors surround us in all life situations and have the power to influence our mood and emotions, which makes color a crucial impact factor for decision making in ecommerce environments. Therefore, this research paper aims to explore the psychological and physiological effects of color use on websites with a neuroimaging method. For this, an experiment was designed in which 24 healthy participants watched an online shoe shop in 4 different colored versions during which their neural activity in the prefrontal cortex was measured. While comparing the neural activity between the different employed colors, distinct implications can be derived. That is, in comparison to the blueish website, (1) grey scaled websites require higher cognitive load but are rated as aesthetically pleasing, (2) greenish websites result in more negative valence while they require not more neural resources, and (3) reddish websites are rated low in valence and require higher neural processing resources.

Social robots increasingly diffuse into our lives in work, health, and many other areas. However, theoretical approaches that explain how social robots should be designed to maximize experiential and performance-related outcomes in human-robot interaction (HRI) are still rare. To close this research gap, we aim to develop a dual process model of HRI with the help of two experiments. Results of the first experiment show that individuals categorize humans and robots differently in the automatic and reflective system, leading to different forms of robotic biases in these systems. Specifically, whereas humans show a bias against all types of robots in the reflective system, they only show biases against robots with low anthropomorphism in the automatic system. With the second experiment, we aim to complement these results from a neurophysiological perspective to gain more insights into cognitive processes during classification and evaluation of robots.

This chapter presents a method for multi-perspective enterprise modeling (MEMO). Enterprise modeling fundamentally aims to support the conjoint analysis of business and IT to foster their integration. MEMO expands on this general aim with a specific concern for the professional perspectives of different stakeholder groups. MEMO is based on a language architecture that comprises an extensible set of domain-specific modeling languages, each addressing one or more professional perspectives. It is supplemented by an adaptable generic framework to support high-level ‘ballpark' views of an enterprise and to serve as a common starting point for more elaborate analysis and design tasks. MEMO also supports the construction of corresponding process models to design customized modeling methods. The chapter motivates the use of MEMO and illustrates possible use cases. It also provides a description of the method's architecture, its DSMLs, and a tool environment that supports the development and analysis of enterprise models.

For most car and truck manufacturers access to information about the status of produced vehicles end with their sale. With embedded connectivity units this changes so that manufacturers can gather data from vehicle in-build sensors and thus, gain insights into each products usage. Our study investigates why manufacturers aim to integrate connectivity units into their products to gather sensor based usage information and what hinders them to do so. Thereby, we aim to identify the factors that have an influence on the decision of vehicle manufacturers to adopt the concept of the vehicle digital twin. To unveil those factors, we conducted 30 expert interviews at two vehicle manufacturers in which we found benefits and barriers regarding the realization of a product digital twin. By conceptualizing the benefits and barriers, which have a positive or negative influence on the adoption decision from the perspective of the manufacturers, we were able to derive general influences on the adoption decision. In our adapted technology-organization-environment framework we found influences in the technological (i.e. product data and product heterogeneity), the organizational (i.e. business model orientation, readiness of internal processes and digital culture) and the environmental (i.e. competitors behaviour, legal regulations and customer demand) dimension.

Health and well-being have been among the essential needs of humanity since the beginning of time. The healthcare systems are coming under more and more pressure due to a constantly growing world population, demographic change and steady rising of chronic disease rates. Through these circumstances, traditional healthcare systems may soon reach their limits and medical resources are becoming an increasingly valuable commodity. Modern technologies like the Internet of Things offer based on their application possibilities great potential for increasing among others flexibility, efficiency and cost-effectiveness of the healthcare system. To ensure such an IoT based healthcare for patients, holistic information and communication technology solutions are required that integrate both system-relevant technological and human aspects. Against this background, we present a generic information system architecture for smart health systems, based on a systematic literature driven explorative analysis of the domain.

Services are becoming increasingly important, and service systems are seeing the use of service-dominant logic to understand value creation through the integration of active and passive resources. Digital transformation is significantly influencing service systems, and new, smart technologies are enabling innovative value propositions, leading to smart service systems. Smart products, which are a part of the Internet of Things, are the main building blocks of such systems. Attempts have been made to conceptualize smart service systems, but there seems to be no consensus in the literature because, for example, smart products have not been defined in a consistent way. We therefore examine ways to classify smart service systems in terms of their characteristics and attributes. We develop a taxonomy based on a systematic literature review focusing on smart features. Furthermore, an evaluation using domain-specific use cases demonstrates the applicability of the taxonomy. Our contribution combines and extends the available conceptualizations regarding smart service systems to pave the way for the necessary future research.

Food has been a fundamental human need since the beginning of time. Agriculture, as the central foundation of global food production, is increasingly coming under pressure from the growing world population. Even today, it´s no longer possible to guarantee sufficient food security in the long term and 10% of humanity goes to bed hungry every night. Given the expected increase in the world’s population based on today’s figures and an associated more than 70% necessary increase in food sector production, the question arises whether this is feasible using classical methods and approaches. The use of modern information and communication technology alone is certainly not a panacea. Despite all this, technologies, such as the Internet of Things, show great potential for the development of more productive and cost-effective but, above all, more sustainable agriculture. However, developing such a solution requires more than a purely technical point of view. Only by creating a holistic information technology solution that takes not only a technological but also a plant, animal, human and therefore holistic perspective can real progress be made. Against this background, this paper represents the publication of a generic information system architecture based on a systematic literature-driven explorative analysis of the domain.

Blue of all colors seems to be generally preferred by humans and animals. Consequently, the use of this color in ecommerce context has several positive effects such as increased trustworthiness and aesthetic ratings. These effects are, in this study, hypothesized to be caused by specific neural processes in the prefrontal cortex of human decision makers. Consequently, this study tackles the research question whether there is a distinct neural activation pattern for blue websites that helps to explain why blue is often most favored. To investigate this, one website is designed and manipulated in col-or to which user reactions are measured by employing functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). The results of this study show that blue colored websites seem to require generally less processing power related to cognitive while revealing increases in brain structures related to processing pleasant and aesthetic stimuli.
 

Whether males and females evaluate ecommerce websites differently has long been discussed and has resulted in inconsistent research findings. While some studies identified gender differences in the evaluation of websites, other studies indicate that these differences are inexistent. To shed light on these hypothetical gender differences on ecommerce website perceptions, a behavioral and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) experiment in which participants had to use and evaluate three different ecommerce websites was conducted. While the questionnaire-based behavioral results showed no significant differences between gender, neural gender differences could be discovered. In particular, well rated websites resulted in increased neural activity for men in brain regions of the dlPFC and vlPFC in the left hemisphere, while the lower evaluated websites resulted in an increased neural activity in brain regions of the vmPFC for men in the right hemisphere. Consequently, the results suggest that men seem to require higher neural activity for the emotional appraisal of, and decision making on ecommerce websites.

The ever increasing intra- and inter-competition, increased costs and a lower differentiation margin have led to intense competitive pressures within the domains of wholesaling and retailing. At the same time the increasing digitization due to technological innovation will radical change the economical and procedural fundamentals. In addition, from an entrepreneurial point of view, it must also be considered that the complexity of decision-relevant framework conditions has increased. Digitalisation is therefore to be seen as an essential driver for optimising business processes and as the basis for a new understanding of products and services. However, it cannot be considered independently of other social trends. The chapter will elaborate the underlying drivers and technological trends empowering the transformation processes within the domain of wholesaling and reailing. Starting from these major drivers we will scrutinize the impact of technological advancements and the opportunities, risks and constraints which are connected with it.

The Internet of Things and associated smart products are finding application in evermore domains. Within agriculture it is described under the term smart farming. Using smart products allows farmers to automatically record relevant information, monitor operating procedures or remotely control machines. To make these capabilities usable for added value, not only smart products but entire information systems that align to the domain and its requirements are necessary. Within the literature, various architectures can be found already. However, many lack a methodical foundation or an abstraction of application cases and technology. Against this background, the article presents an information system architecture independent of application cases or technology and oriented toward the domain of smart farming. Starting point of the development is a systematic literature review, based on Webster and Watson in combination with Vom Brocke, based on 18 existing architecture approaches that are analyzed and aggregated.

Organizations are increasingly challenged to digitally transform themselves, and to respond to calls for increased sustainability. While the adoption of sustainable innovations, such as Green information systems (Green IS), are one way to address both challenges, there are only few insights that provide non-technology or company-specific insights into specific positive and negative Green IS outcomes. We address this shortcoming and shed light on Green IS adoption outcomes, as well as their interconnection to general sustainability initiatives in organizations. In a descriptive survey we find that many organizations already employ sustainability principles, but few incorporate Green IS. We confirm organizations almost exclusively report positive outcomes of Green IS usage, such as reduced resource consumption, increased compliance with regulations, and social acceptance. Based on these findings we suggest to especially further research the process of Green IS adoption.

Self-tracking solutions have become globally widespread, as they promise numerous advantages (e.g. improving health) to their users. Despite their benefits, such solutions are often abandoned due to quality issues. This phenomenon can also be observed for digitized products in general. As self-tracking solutions are hybrid products, combining digital and physical components, traditional domain-independent and abstract quality models like the prominent ISO 25000 standard seem to not cover quality in an appropriate way. We address these issues by answering the research question of which factors affect quality perceptions of different stakeholder groups when interacting in a wearable ecosystem. We use a systematic literature review based on a research protocol to identify and analyze 98 quality-influencing factors from 19 studies that we cluster in a map. The identified factors are compared to the ISO 25000 standard, showing that certain factors like hedonic motivation are unconsidered thoroughly in the existing standard.

Die Bedeutung von sog. Cloud-Services hat in den vergangenen Jahren deutlich zugenommen. Hiermit einher gehen unterschiedlichste Zweifelsfragen und Auseinandersetzungen mit der Finanzverwaltung im Rahmen von Betriebsprüfungen. Dies ist der Tatsache geschuldet, dass regelmäßig große Unsicherheit auf drei Ebenen besteht: Es ist erstens für die Steuerabteilung oder den Berater nur schwer nachvollziehbar, welche konkreten Leistungen sich hinter einem Begriff wie “Cloud-Aufwendungen” verbergen und wie diese Leistungen technisch erbracht werden. Auf einer zweiten Ebene herrscht regelmäßig Unsicherheit im Hinblick auf die zivilrechtliche Kategorisierung entsprechender Verträge und Leistungsbeziehungen. Schließlich ist auf einer dritten Ebene regelmäßig unklar, wie sich die steuerliche Behandlung darstellt. Das kann unter anderem Themen wie Quellensteuereinbehalt/beschränkte Steuerpflicht, die Hinzurechnungsbesteuerung oder auch die gewerbesteuerliche Hinzurechnung betreffen. Der vorliegende Beitrag widmet sich letzterer und hierbei insbesondere der sog. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) als einer wesentlichen Art von Cloud-Diensten.

Enterprise Architectures (EAs) are commonly visualized in the form of text, numbers, tables, graphs, models, and diagrams. These information visualization types are used to describe EAs in today’s organizations, but often lack an intuitive representation. In this paper, we provide another form of EA visualization utilizing the city metaphor. This spatial metaphor is suitable for visualizing complex information structures and potentially facilitates easy understanding of EAs, especially for non-IT staff. Based on a literature review and three rounds of open card sorting, we mapped eleven classes of EA objects to city elements. Our results enabled us to develop a formal language that allows an implementable and human-readable specification of various views, which we call EA City. We created an early stage 3D EA City prototype to demonstrate its applicability. Our model provides a solid foundation for further work on the city metaphor in the context of EA visualization.

In recent years, the “Internet of Things” with so called “smart products” has obtained increasingpopularity in both practice and research. By building on the capabilities of smart products, servicestransform to “smart services” emphasizing the value smart products can provide and how it is co- created. Even though first attempts have been conducted to conceptualize and classify smart services, there seems to be no overall consensus on the specific characteristics of smart services, which different forms they can take on and how different smart services can be described. For example, existing research on smart services does not always consider the common service design elements “servicecontent” and “service delivery”. To address this shortcoming, we develop a taxonomy of smart services by applying extant literature. We further demonstrate the usefulness of our taxonomy by classifying 50 empirical objects and presenting three cases. As a contribution, the paper enhances the understanding of the notion of smart services and strengthens the conceptual foundation for future smart service research.

The digital transformation creates an increasing demand for
projects to prepare and realize change. The professional management of
projects demands for methods. In particular, there is not alone need for
method engineering, but also for managing the use of methods and for
method maintenance. In this paper, it will be shown that traditional
approaches to method engineering are not only limited with respect to
reuse, they also do not support the integration of method engineering and
method management. The approach presented in this paper addresses
these limitations. It is based on a mult-level language architecture, which
enables the common representation of models and code.

Mit der digitalisierungsbedingten Zunahme kontinuierlich erfasster Massendaten aus unterschiedlichsten Quellen entsteht die Hoffnung, einen besseren Zugang als je zuvor zur Realität zu erhalten. Angesichts des Big-Data-Phänomens stellt sich dabei für Handelsunternehmen die Frage, welche unternehmensweite Datenstrategie es zu verfolgen gilt. Dazu liefert der folgende Beitrag anhand eines Frameworks eine sachlogische Struktur für eine unternehmensweite Datenstrategie. Für jedes aufgezeigte Strategiefeld dieses Frameworks sind dabei Basisentscheidungen zu treffen, die die nötigen Voraussetzungen zur Nutzung von Daten für erfolgreiche Einzelprojekte als auch die erfolgreiche Eingliederung datengetriebener Aktivitäten in Standardprozesse schaffen. Neben der Datenstrategie wird auch der realisierbare betriebswirtschaftliche Beitrag für Einzelhändler anhand einer Fallstudie entfaltet. Dazu wird auf das Handelsmarketing und den Marketing-Mix als zentrales Konzept, und seit jeher eines der wichtigsten Tätigkeitsfelder im Einzelhandel, zur Aufstellung einer datengetriebenen Entscheidungsphänomenologie zurückgegriffen. Als Antwort auf die Frage, welche Datenstrategie angesichts von Big Data von einem Einzelhändler zu verfolgen ist, wurden verschiedene Teilbereiche identifiziert und Maßnahmen innerhalb dieser ausgearbeitet. Es wurde gezeigt, dass integrierte und kohärente Maßnahmen auf organisationaler und technologischer Ebene für die Sammlung, Speicherung, Verarbeitung, Verwendung, Steuerung und Transformation von Big Data im Unternehmen nötig sind. Mit Erfüllung der notwendigen Vorrausetzungen für Big Data im Rahmen der Datenstrategie ist es dabei möglich nicht nur die hier aufgezeigte Absatzseite der Unternehmung zu optimieren, sondern auch die tiefgreifende Integration der verschiedenen Prozessbereiche im Handelsunternehmen abzubilden.

Durch die Digitalisierung befinden sich Unternehmen oftmals in der Umstellung zu digitalen Geschäftsprozessen und Geschäftsmodellen. Dies bietet viele neue Chancen für Innovationen durch den Einsatz neuer Konzepte und Technologien. Um diese Chancen nutzbar zu machen, können Servicesysteme eingesetzt werden. Der Beitrag gibt einen Überblick über dieses Konzept und zeigt auf, wie Servicesysteme charakterisiert und entworfen werden können. Ein Servicesystem stellt ein soziotechnisches System dar, das auf die Unterstützung der gemeinsamen Wertschöpfung abzielt, indem verschiedene interne und externe Ressourcen integriert und kombiniert werden. Der Entwurf erfolgt im Rahmen des Service Systems Engineerings in meist agilen Prozessen mit dem Ziel einer frühen Markterprobung. Dabei kann der Innovationsgedanke explizit berücksichtigt werden. Vorhandene Entwurfsansätze sind jedoch meist abstrakt und daher weniger für den konkreten Entwurf geeignet. Es können daher wesentliche Faktoren identifiziert werden, die die Entwicklung von Servicesystemen beeinflussen. Der Beitrag schafft einen Überblick über den aktuellen Stand der Forschung und zeigt Ansatzpunkte für eine Verbesserung der Nutzbarmachung des Konzeptes Servicesystem.

Im Rahmen der Digitalisierung nehmen smarte Produkte und die darauf aufbauenden intelligenten Dienstleistungen einen immer größeren Platz sowohl im betrieblichen Kontext als auch im Endkundenbereich ein. Auslöser hierfür stellt vor allem die leistungsfähigere und kostengünstigere Hardware dar, welche es Unternehmen ermöglicht, zunehmend Produkte mit intelligenten und vernetzten Komponenten auszustatten. Diese smarten Produkte bieten Unternehmen und Kunden völlig neue Möglichkeiten zur Interaktion, bieten neue Mehrwerte und beeinflussen die unternehmerische Wertschöpfung an sich. Ziel dieses Beitrages ist es, einen Einstieg in das Themenfeld der smarten Produkte und Dienstleistungen zu geben und aufzuzeigen, welche Möglichkeiten diese für den Endnutzer und für Unternehmen eröffnen.

In den letzten Jahren wurde die Digitalisierung verstärkt vor dem Hintergrund desInternets der Dinge betrachtet, bei dem jegliche Bestandteile des täglichen Lebens zu intelligenten Objekten (Smart Products) werden und mit dem Internet verbunden sind. Aufbauend auf den Smart Products entstehen neue digitale Dienstleistungen, sogenannte Smart Services. Mit diesen intelligenten Dienstleis- tungen werden völlig neue Wertschöpfungspotenziale erschlossen, die sich eben- falls auf die Geschäftsmodelle von Unternehmen auswirken. Ziel dieses Beitrages ist es, einerseits einen allgemeinen Einstieg in den Themenkomplex der Smart Services zu bieten und selbige andererseits spezifisch vor dem Hintergrund ihres Wertschöpfungspotenzials für Geschäftsmodelle und Ökosysteme näher zu beleuchten.

Information systems are at the core of the digital transformation. To cope with the dynamics of new, emerging markets and ever changing requirements, it is often argued that agile approaches to software development are mandatory. Some even demand to develop information systems without conceptual models, because they were likely to be outdated even before the software is implemented. While such a proposal is not acceptable for serious reasons, conceptual modelling is indeed facing a remarkable challenge in times of change. On the one hand, economics demand for reuse and interoperability, hence, for stable references. On the other hand, freezing structures is likely to compromise a software system's adaptability. Based on an analysis of this conflict and further challenges, it will be shown how languages for conceptual modelling can be designed to support both, the need for reference and the demand for change.

To support understanding and analysis of sustainability related aspects in organizations (e.g., via an assessment of a product’s life-cycle from the cradle to the grave), various instruments, among others, in the field of conceptual modeling, have been proposed. Although existing tools and languages are, to some extent, indeed supporting the product Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA), our investigations show that a hierarchy of Domain-Specific Modeling Languages(DSMLs) is needed to satisfy advanced requirements. In this paper, as an innovation for the field of LCA, we propose an application of multi-level language architecture to design a hierarchy of DSMLs encompassing concepts for LCAs that can be detailed to specific industrial domains and local needs of enterprises. This enables a new generation of instruments allowing users to use and refine concepts, corresponding to their specific needs.

Information technologies in general and artifical intelligence (AI) in particular try to shift operational task away from a human actor. Machine learning (ML) is a discipline within AI that deals with learning improvement based on data. Subsequently, retailing and wholesaling, which are known for their high proportion of human work and at the same time low profit margins, can be regarded as a natural fit for the application of AI and ML tools. This article examines the current prevalence of the use of machine learning in the industry. The paper uses two disparate approaches to identify the scientific and practical state-of-the-art within the domain: a literature review on the major scientific databases and an empirical study of the 10 largest international retail companies and their adoption of ML technologies in the domain are combined with each other. This text does not present a prototype using machine learning techniques. Instead of a consideration and comparison of the particular algorythms and approaches, the underling problems and operational tasks that are elementary for the specific domain are identified. Based on a comprehensive literature review the main problem types that ML can serve, and the associated ML techniques, are evaluated. An empirical study of the 10 largest retail companies and their ML adoption shows that the practical market adoption is highly variable. The pioneers have extensively integrated applications into everyday business, while others only show a small set of early prototypes. However, some others show neither active use nor efforts to apply such a technology. Following this, a structured approach is taken to analyze the value-adding core processes of retail companies. The current scientific and practical application scenarios and possibilities are illustrated in detail. In summary, there are numerous possible applications in all areas. In particular, in areas where future forecasts and predictions are needed (like marketing or replenishment), the use of ML today is both scientifically and practically highly developed.

Organizations and society nowadays face significant challenges. Organizations are required to fundamentally digital transform by assimilating Information Technology (IT) and Information System (IS) assets. Society faces an increasingly severe global climate disruption and needs to become more environmentally friendly. Green IT (GIT) and Green IS (GIS), as technologies and initiatives that seek to reduce the negative impacts of IT/IS on the environment, are a response to this. They can help organizations to gain a competitive advantage while also addressing broad-scale environmental issues. We undertake a literature review to frame the general GIT/GIS adoption process. We provide an overarching understanding by modeling a sequence of five cognitive adoption phases (outset, pre-adoption, adoption, post-adoption, and outcome) on four levels (environmental, societal, organizational, and individual). By recognizing that GIT/GIS adoption has multiple drivers and outcomes, we provide an extensive perspective on GIT/GIS adoption. 

Making informed decisions about historically grown and often complex business and Information Technology (IT) landscapes can be particularly difficult. Enterprise Architecture Management (EAM) addresses this issue by enabling stakeholders to base their decisions on relevant information about the organization’s current and future Enterprise Architectures (EAs). However, visualization of EA is often confronted with low usefulness perceptions. Informed by the cognitive fit theory (CFT), we argue that decision-makers benefit from interacting with EA visualizations using Augmented Reality (AR), because it enables a consistent task-related mental representation based on the natural use of decision-makers’ visual-spatial abilities. The goal of this paper is to demonstrate ARs suitability for EA-related decision-making. We follow the design science research (DSR) approach to develop and evaluate an AR head-mounted display (HMD) prototype, using the Microsoft HoloLens. Our results suggest that EA-related decision-making can profit from applying AR, but users find the handling of the HMD device cumbersome. 

Business process management (BPM) broadly covers a lifecycle of four distinct phases: design, configuration, enactment, and analysis and evaluation. Most BPM tool suites impose a strict separation between these phases, i.e., in each phase different languages and tools are used and the transition between phases is indirect and costly. This paper presents an environment for integrating all phases of the BPM lifecycle in which business process (BP) types and their instances can be modeled, visualized, managed and automatically synchronized, using a shared representation of models and code. The environment extends the capabilities of BP models to be used not only for specifying BPs but also for: (1) enactment—creating instance objects that capture BP operational data; (2) monitoring BP instances as they progress; (3) visualizing performance indicators of executed BPs at runtime; and (4) navigating from a BP type model to its respective instance population. As opposed to existing tools, the proposed environment does not require regenerating the workflow schema when BP designs change, nor does it require additional adaptations to support monitoring. Thereby, we facilitate a continuous and dynamic BPM environment, where workflow specifications can be changed at runtime. Our solution integrates a meta-programming language called eXecutable Modeling Facility (XMF) and the multi-perspective enterprise modeling framework (MEMO).

The Flexible Meta Modelling and Execution Language (FMMLx ) is a multi-level language that allows to create executable models. It is implemented in the integrated meta-programming and meta-modelling environment Xmodeler. The Xmodeler is based on XCore, a recursive, reflexive meta-model that allows the defnition and implementation of classes on arbitrary classifcation levels. However, XCore does not allow to assign classifcation levels to classes. The FMMLx extends XCore with explicit classifcation levels and intrinsic features that allow for deferred instantiation. Like XCore, the FMMLx features a common representation of models and code. As a consequence, models can be executed without the need to transform them to code. The use of the FMMLx during the last fve years was promising, since it allows to clearly promote reuse and flexibility of modelling languages and software systems. Nevertheless, some of the assumptions its design was based on had to be challenged. In addition, the use of the language was compromised by various  limitations. Against this background, it was decided to develop a substantially revised version, the FMMLx 2.0. This report presents an analysis of requirements that form the foundation for the subsequent  specifcation of the new version. The report also presents a proposal for a technical terminology of multi-level modelling.

Dealing with ill-structured problems is a central responsibility of the manager operating in a business environment of complexity and ambiguity. To assist in problem structuring, a number of problem structuring methods have been developed in the field of operations research. But the modeling approaches incorporated in existing problem structuring methods lack semantic expressiveness, syntactical precision, and domain-specific modeling concepts. In contrast, the field of enterprise modeling offers a range of semantically rich domain-specific modeling languages. In this paper, we report on work towards a more expressive problem structuring method that integrates insights from theoretical problem solving research, core assumptions of the field of problem structuring methods, and modeling languages from the field of enterprise modeling. Specifically, we present results of a conceptual study of theoretical views of the concept of a problem, we present a meta model conceptualization of ‘problem’ in the context of enterprise modeling, and we illustrate the practical use of the proposed meta model with a case study. The presented conceptualization contributes to the field of enterprise modeling by offering a more nuanced ‘problem’ modeling concept than is currently available, and by constituting progress towards a problem structuring method that is more expressive and versatile than existing approaches.

Smart connected products (SCPs) have gained significant attention in different domains because they offer numerous benefits and change the way of competition and value creation. While quality is im-portant for SCPs, no holistic quality model is available to target the present quality problems. Further-more, since the concept of an SCP is quite abstract, a bottom-up approach that starts with a concrete example seems suitable. Therefore, this paper identifies the five key components of SCPs and maps them to self-tracking solutions (STS) in order to show that STSs are suitable substitutes. We also analyse quality models in corresponding areas to verify the absence of a holistic quality model for the selected example. This contribution identifies the research gap regarding holistic, stakeholder-oriented quality models and helps researchers understand SCPs better. 

This report documents the program and the outcomes of Dagstuhl Seminar 17492 "Multi-Level Modelling". This seminar brought together researchers and industry practitioners from the fields of conceptual modeling, ontologies, and formal foundations to discuss and share the benefits of Multi-Level Modelling (MLM), to develop an agreement on MLM terminology and scope, and to drive future research directions in MLM. Some foundational presentations were given by the seminar organizers to ground the discussions and provide an initial set of open questions which would lead to the formation of the working groups. In addition, six industry representatives gave talks explaining the needs, challenges, utility, and possible issues with adoption of MLM in industry. Based on the original seminar goals, the talks, and the resulting discussions, four working groups were established to investigate: the formal and ontological "Foundations"of MLM; promising "Applications" and potential evaluation criteria for MLM methods; the "Dynamic Aspects" of MLM, such as processes and behaviour; and, the use of and impact on "Model Transformations" in the context of MLM.

A central conflict in decision and problem solving support is known as the ‘Power/Generality’ trade-off. The incorporation of a high level of domain-specific concepts and mechanisms in a decision instrument will increase the instrument’s power but will do so at the cost of the instrument’s generality. This paper has two purposes. First, it brings to attention the power/generality conflict in conceptual decision and problem solving modeling, and it demonstrates the resultant problems in relation to an existing enterprise decision modeling language. Second, the paper proposes the use of a multi-level modeling paradigm as a possible resolution of the conflict, and it proposes concrete re-conceptualizations for an existing modeling language to alleviate the associated problems.

In this contribution, the experiences and results from the tests under real field conditions are described, which are concerned with grid automation systems in the research project Agent.HyGrid. Furthermore, the deployment of the grid automation system in a real-world distribution grid is discussed.
 

ER 2017 Workshops AHA, MoBiD,
MREBA, OntoCom, and QMMQ
Valencia, Spain, November 6–9, 2017, Proceedings

To appear

To appear

To appear

This work introduces the concept of testbed application of energy agents, which is the intermediate step between testing agents in pure simulation environment and deploying them in real energy distribution systems. In the testbed application case, the energy agent is taken from the simulation environment and deployed to dedicated hardware, where it controls a simulated or real technical system, while still working against a simulated environment. Compared to a pure simulation environment, this application case raises a number of new challenges, mainly resulting from inter-platform agent communication. In this work these challenges are discussed and an implementation handling them is presented and evaluated.
 

This volume consists of revised selected papers presented at the 3rd and 4th International Conference on Smart Energy Research, SmartER Europe 2016 and 2017, held in Essen, Germany, in February 2016 and 2017. The 13 full papers included in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 25 submissions. The papers discuss recent advances and experiences in building and using new IT-based solutions for Smart Grids and Smart Markets combining the knowledge of different disciplines such as engineering, business management and economics as well as computer science. They reflect the versatility and the complexity of the transformation process in the energy sector and also show the great need for research that is required to achieve the high targets for a digitized and sustainable energy landscape.
 

Today, value is co-created in sociotechnical systems in which different stakeholders integrate resources (products and services) in an interactive process. For these systems to be successful, quality is very important. However, existing systems often fail to deliver the right level of quality, and the available quality approaches seem to be insufficient. Therefore, this paper provides insight into the role of quality by applying a service system perspective. We show that a holistic quality perception that reflects the modern expectations of stakeholders is necessary. In addition, different resources for modern services and their interaction need to be taken into account. This results in the need for quality management specific for sociotechnical systems, which integrates different existing approaches to cover these demands. Furthermore, the authors suggest future research on perceived quality and technical support in this context.

A simple idea underpins the scientific process: All results should be subject to continued testing and questioning. Given the particularities of our international IS discipline, different viewpoints seem to be required to develop a picture of the merits and limits of testing and replication. Hence, the authors of this paper approach the topic from different perspectives. Following the ongoing discourse in neighbouring disciplines, we start by highlighting the significance of testing, replication and negation for scientific discourse as well as for the sponsors of research initiatives. Next, we discuss types of replication research and the challenges associated with each. In the third section, challenging questions are raised in the light of the ability of IS research for self-correction. Then, we address publication issues related to types of replications that require shifting editorial behaviors. The fifth section reflects on the possible use and interpretation of replication results in the light of contingency. As a key takeaway, the paper suggests ways to identify studies worth replicating in our field and reflects on possible roles of replication and testing for future IS research.

Based on a critical account of the dominant concept of theory, the paper presents an alterna-tive, wider notion of theory. It is motivated by the need to cope with a contingent research subject and the assumption that IS should provide an orientation for managing the digital transfor-mation. Unlike neo-positivistic notions of theory, the proposed conception is not restricted to de-scriptions of the factual, but may be aimed at de-signing possible future worlds. Conceiving of possible future worlds requires overcoming the barriers created by language that constitutes our idea of the present world. The paper discusses the resulting methodological challenges and outlines how they might be addressed.

The current transformation process of how energy is supplied attracts great interest from many different market players. As a consequence, many proprietary solutions for ``smart'' energy applications are flooding the market. This turns out to be rather a problem than part of the solution for the systematic development of future energy grids. Additionally, the absence of necessary standards blocks further developments that enable the creation of novel, market-driven and hybrid control solutions. To overcome these problems, we suggest a standardized control approach for hybrid energy systems by means of a so called Energy Option Model (EOM). This unifying model and the therewith developed decision support system provides the necessary technical understanding and the economic assessment options for network-connected energy conversion systems. Thus, it can be used for single on-site systems as well as for aggregated systems that are controlled in centralized or decentralized manner. This paper presents and discusses exemplary use cases for our EOM that illustrate the centralized as well as the decentralized use of our approach within hybrid energy systems. Overall, we believe that the EOM represents the key approach for a further systematic development of an open hybrid energy grid.

In this book, Prof. Ahlemann and Prof. Nils Urbach discuss the implications of the current need for digitalization for companies and their IT. In the course of digitalization, IT organizations’ focus shifts from being a mere service provider to supporting the shaping of the business. IT is consequently increasingly required to cooperate proactively with other departments and to identify innovation possibilities.

The book’s target group includes IT managers, executives responsible for IT, and practice-oriented researchers, providing advice on how to react to, but also shape digital transformation.

In recent years, several developments in the energy sector have been imposing major challenges on our energy supply infrastructure. Due to the liberalization of the energy markets that started in the 1990s, longstanding monopolies are being broken up and new actors enter the stage. An increasing awareness regarding the environmental impacts of fossil fuel-based electricity generation put renewable energy sources like wind and solar on a lasting growth path. The volatility inherent to these sources and the shift from centralized to decentralized generation necessitate new approaches as to how energy is marketed, distributed and consumed. The smart grid, i.e. equipping the energy infrastructure with modern information and communication technology, is widely considered essential in addressing the challenges outlined.
 

As a result of fast growing share of renewable energy production in the energy market the management of power and its distribution becomes more and more complex. The here presented Energy Option Model (EOM) seems to be a promising solution to handle this newly arisen complexity. This paper will present the EOM and analyze its capabilities in centralized evaluation of aggregated systems. The example use-case will be the charging process of a fleet of electric vehicles. While the results support the potential of the EOM to implement coordination strategies for aggregations of systems, they also show the general limitations of centralized control solutions for larger groups of systems in the context of smart grids.

Die gegenwärtigen Entwicklungen in Wirtschaft, Gesellschaft und Informationstechnologie führen zu veränderten Anforderungen an den modernen Wissensarbeitsplatz. Um diesen Anforderungen gerecht zu werden, sind die erforderlichen organisationalen und technologischen Voraussetzungen zu schaffen. Der vorliegende Beitrag geht der Frage nach, welche konkreten Anforderungen an den „Wissensarbeitsplatzplatz der Zukunft“ gestellt werden, welche Herausforderungen sich dadurch für das strategische IT-Management ergeben und wie die erforderlichen Entwicklungsschritte aktiv angegangen werden können. 

Bookstores have been strongly affected by the rise of electronic commerce. Traditional (physical) bookstores now have to compete with online counterparts that possess several advantages over them, such as lower prices and 24/7 availability. This paper investigates the influence that online bookstores have on the sales of physical bookstores in China. The geographic restriction is based on the particularities of the Chinese market that differentiate China from other markets, both in the book market as well as in the adoption of E-commerce. Since there is a lack of overview in the English academic literature on this topic, we conducted a literature review to summarize the current state of research. Our research highlights multiple advantages and disadvantages of physical and online bookstores in the Chinese market, which in turn influence the sales of traditional bookstores. This paper offers a theoretical and a practical contribution. Participants of the Chinese book market can use the results to better assess and improve their market position by addressing the disadvantages or building on the strengths identified during the review. Furthermore, this paper can serve as a starting point for English researchers, as almost no research on this topic has been published in English.

Adaptation models; Agent.HyGrid project; Computational modeling; Context; Control Engineering; decentralized decision making; electrical power; energy markets; future energy grids exhibit; hybrid hardware test-beds; hybrid power systems; hybrid software test-beds; multiagent systems; multi-agent systems; multienergy infrastructure testing; power engineering computing; power markets; program testing; Simulation; Software; software artifacts; software development processes; software reusability; Systematics; Testing

The ongoing conversion of our energy supply encounters a great interest of many different market players that were originally located in different industries. As a consequence, a vast amount of proprietary solutions for “smart” energy applications is flooding the market. This tends to be rather a problem than part of the solution for the systematic development of future energy grids. Here, the absence of necessary unifications and standards blocks further developments that would enable the creation of novel, market-driven and hybrid control solutions for various types of technical systems. To overcome these problems, we present in this article our notion and the definition of a unified autonomous software entity that we call Energy Agent. Based on the energy conservation law and a generalized energy option model, we claim that our Energy Agent approach has the capabilities to enable cross domain interactions between different types of energy systems and networks. Further we will outline a systematic development process for Energy Agents that considers implementation, simulation, test-bed application and a real on-site usage. By taking into account these development stages, we expect to concurrently develop a novel laboratory that enables to competitively test and validate new and hybrid control solutions before they are applied in real systems.
 

This chapter presents a novel approach to dynamic resource allocation in hybrid energy grid scenarios, called energy-agents. This concept allows the easy control of inter-domain energy exchanges, such as heat generation from electricity or gas, the production of gas from electricity, or vice versa, based on the first law of thermodynamics. In a first hardware and software implementation, we were able to showcase the functionality and usability of this approach, enabling the developers of smart grid solutions to use the same code throughout the entire development process. This reusability will help to keep down development time and costs. On top of this, we were able to realize energy and cost savings by dynamically allocating the energy sources, as required by the consumer processes.
 

Die sich stets weiter entwickelnden Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologien (IuK) sind Treiber eines beispiellosen Strukturwandels: Sie durchdringen und prägen zunehmend unsere Kommunikation, wirtschaftliches Handeln und soziale Interaktionen. Auch im schulischen Bildungssystem muss man sich daher mit der Frage auseinandersetzen, welche Rolle IuK im praktischen Unterricht und in den schulischen Bildungsinhalten spielen sollte. Vor diesem Hintergrund bietet der vorliegende Arbeitsbericht eine umfassende Analyse der verschiedenen Facetten von IuK im Kontext allgemeinbildender Schulen. Dazu wird zunächst ein Strukturierungsrahmen für schulische IuK-Bildungsinhalte entwickelt. Desweiteren erfolgt eine umfassende Auswertung bisheriger empirischer Studien und Literaturquellen. Die Analyse fokussiert dabei auf die aktuelle Rolle von IuK-Ressourcen und -Bildungsinhalten an deutschen Schulen und ergänzt dieses Bild – wo möglich – durch einen Vergleich mit anderen Industrienationen. Abschließend werden allgemeine Empfehlungen zur Ausrichtung der IuK-Bildung an Schulen abgeleitet und Forschungsbedarfe aufgezeigt.

Vor dem Hintergrund des durch Informationstechnologien (IT)angestoßenen weitreichenden Transformationsprozesses in allen sozialen, gesellschaftlichen und wirtschaftlichen Be-reichen erläutert der Forschungsberichtdie Relevanz der Wirtschaftsinformatik für die schulische Bildung. Nach der grundlegenden Beschreibung des Gegenstandsbereichs der Wirtschaftsinformatik werden wesentlicheAnforderungen an die Vermittlung von Wirtschaftsinformatik-Themen im schulischen Bereich abgeleitet.Für ein Fach Wirtschaftsinformatik liegen in Nordrhein-Westfalenbislang nur an beruflichen Schulen Lehrpläne vor.Die Ergebnisse einer ersten Lehrplananalyse weisenauf deutliche Schwächenhinsichtlich der Abbildung von Wirtschaftsinformatikkonzepten und -methoden in den entsprechenden Fächern hin. Eineangemessene Vermittlung setzt zunächst die adäquate Ausbildung der Lehrenden voraus. Der Bericht bietet dazu eine Analyse der Lehramtsstudiengänge mit beruflicher Fachrichtung „Wirtschaftsinformatik“. Abschließend werden Maßnahmen vorgeschlagen, die aus fachlicher Sicht geeignet erscheinen daraufhinzuwirken, dass die Themen der Wirtschaftsinformatik zukünftig in den Lehrplänen der (beruflichen) Schulen und in der Lehrerausbildung adäquater abgebildet werden

This article is also available in German in print and via http://www.wirtschaftsinformatik.de: Loos P (2013) Methodenpluralismus in der Wirtschaftsinformatik? WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK. doi:  10.1007/s11576-013-0392-0.

The need for the application of software agents and agent-technologies in highly diversified future energy grids is widely accepted today. Nevertheless, the very general concept of the agent paradigm still leads to misunderstandings and to the fact that agents are meant and utilized for very different tasks. Accordingly, the approaches that were presented in the Smart Gird area have major weaknesses in terms of comparability and a subsequently large-scale use. We claim that the introduction of a unified definition of an Energy Agent will help to create a coherent picture that can accelerate further discussions and the conversion of the energy supply. Considering a development cycle that consists of modeling and implementation, simulation, test-bed application and the deployment to real systems, we present here our definition of an Energy Agent that takes into account the law of conservation of energy. Further, we present a classification of Energy Agents according to their sophistication and integration level and outline the need for individual but standardized energetic option models.

Recent studies give empirical evidence that much of today's software is to a large extent built on preexisting software, such as commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) and open source software components. In this exploratory study we want to contribute to this small but increasing body of knowledge by investigating third party component reuse in 36 Java web applications that are open source and are meant to be used in an enterprise context. Our goal is to get a better understanding on how third party components are reused in web applications and how to better support it.

The results are in line with existing research in this field. 70 third party components are being reused on average. 50 percent of the 40 most reused third party components are maintained by the Apache Foundation. Further research questions based on the study results were generated and are presented at the end of this paper.

Das Paradigma des Agenten findet zunehmend Anwendung in hochdynamischen und komplexen Bereichen, welche koordinierte oder koordinierende Prozesse erfordern. In diesem Beitrag werden neue Anforderungen an die Systeme der Energieversorgung und des Netzbetriebes vorgestellt und diskutiert, inwieweit das Agenten-Paradigma diesen gerecht werden kann.

The conversion of our energy supply systems is practically just at the beginning. Technically distributed, hybrid and individual energy producer and consumer have to be coupled to form individual small(er) smart markets. Thus, it can be expected that the interactions and dependencies between technical and economical systems will increase. A sound understanding of the limits in the interaction between smart grids and smart markets will be a key point for the further development of energy grids. This paper argues that agents, multi-agent system and agent based simulations are a promising approach to deal with many of the new challenges connected to smart grids. For the time being appropriate, standardized simulation tools for the new and maybe hybrid smart energy systems are not yet available. However, their existence would accelerate the development of intelligent energy networks substantially.

Reusing off-the-shelf (OTS) components (including commercial and open source software) has become a key success factor in software development projects leading to reduced costs, faster time-to-market and better software quality. This especially holds true in the field of web engineering, where software engineers are faced with a steady proliferation of new technologies and standards. But there are upfront and ongoing efforts and risks attached to the adoption of OTS components which makes decision-making very difficult. Such difficulties are for example a large and intransparent market, incompatibilities between components and architectural mismatches. In this paper, a plan towards a novel platform concept is proposed that can improve the situation for software engineers coping with the adoption of OTS components during webbased systems development.

One key contribution is an empirically derived ontology to describe software artifacts on a feature level allowing a better description and identification of OTS components in the domain of web development. Another key contribution is a concept for a lean experience sharing mechanism. The goal of both contributions is to improve OTS component decision-making.

The concept will be implemented as a platform prepopulated with OTS components from the domain of Java web development. A cross-case study is planned to evaluate the concept.

In addition to fast technological advances in the area of mobile devices and its broad adoption in todays developed societies, mobile applications do not only address the consumer electronics market but are also increasingly being used in a business and industry context. Thus, we see a demand for research developing software systems comprising mobile devices with special respect to security concerns. In this paper we want to address this demand from an architectural point of view and make use of the concept of architectural decisions. We present a guidance model that supports on the one hand this decision-making process during architecting mobile applications. On the other hand the presented guidance model serves as a tool to evaluate existing architectures. The guidance model has been created based on an adapted version of Zimmermann’s SOAD framework, which is used for in the context of service-oriented architectures. The guidance model itself consists of a set of interrelated architectural decisions for recurring design situations. The application of the guidance model is demonstrated along a real-world scenario. The guidance model also takes into account that security concerns are changing and therefore provides an extension mechanism which is presented in this paper.

The discipline of engineering secure software and services brings together researchers and practitioners from software, services, and security engineering. This interdisciplinary community is fairly new, it is still not well integrated and is therefore confronted with differing perspectives, processes, methods, tools, vocabularies, and standards. We present a Common Body of Knowledge (CBK) to overcome the aforementioned problems. We capture use cases from research and practice to derive requirements for the CBK. Our CBK collects, integrates, and structures knowledge from the different disciplines based on an ontology that allows one to semantically enrich content to be able to query the CBK. The CBK heavily relies on user participation, making use of the Semantic MediaWiki as a platform to support collaborative writing. The ontology is complemented by a conceptual framework, consisting of concepts to structure the knowledge and to provide access to it, and a means to build a common terminology. We also present organizational factors covering dissemination and quality assurance.

In many countries, future energy supply, management, and consumption change completely compared to today’s status. One reason is that sustainable energy production will rely on a large number of small and medium sized, de-centralized energy production units. The aim is to replace a small number of large power plants. The energy supply strategy change puts completely different demands on the energy grid as well as on the business models to run those energy grids efficiently and, especially, securely. The future energy grid will have to deal with an autonomous, communication-driven, highly diversified and dynamic, and continuously changing environment. Additionally, while today’s energy grids are run as independent systems the interaction between different energy networks, like natural gas or district heat, will strongly increase in the future. Inspired by ideas and techniques like Mini-CHP (combined heat and power) or Power-to-Gas, it is expected that future energy networks have to be seen as an entire hybrid energy network, where quantities of energy and energy forms will be dynamically exchanged and substituted as required. As a consequence, a lot of expertise that was gained in the past is no longer valid. On the other hand, little experience exists when it comes to shaping and managing the future energy grid. Due to the nature of multi-agent based simulation this class of simulation tools is well-suited for the simulation of future energy networks. The main advantages are the autonomy of agents, their highly developed interaction skills, the inherent distributed/decentralized approach of control in such a system and the high flexibility in the execution of tasks. This article presents Agent.GUI, which can be seen as a simulation toolkit and framework for complex and diversified energy systems. Based on the well-known JADE platform, the toolkit provides a wealth of specific features tailored to the needs for simulation of hybrid energy networks.

Researchers often have to understand new knowledge areas, and identify research gaps and immature areas in them. They have to understand and link numerous publications to achieve this goal. This is difficult, because natural language has to be analyzed in the publications, and implicit relations between them have to be discovered. We propose to utilize the structuring possibilities of ontologies to make the relations between publications, knowledge objects (e.g., methods, tools, notations), and knowledge areas explicit. Furthermore, we use Kitchenham’s work on structured literature reviews and apply it to the ontology. We formalize relations between objects in the ontology using Codd’s relational algebra to support different kinds of literature research. These formal expressions are implemented as ontology queries. Thus, we implement an immature research area analysis and research gap identification mechanism. The ontology and its relations are implemented based on the Semantic MediaWiki+ platform.

In environments that require the use of software applications, intervals where application functionality, tools, methods and technical systems are changing are often very short. The process of searching for relevant information about a specific issue is frequently executed and time-consuming. Because of the availability of a nearly unlimited amount of data, people spend a lot of time in formulating search queries and evaluating the relevance of the search results. In this paper, we describe a generic approach that improves the information search and retrieval process of different activities with the use of context information. One main goal is the integration of the crowd€ at different stages of this process by combining collective intelligence concepts with context-aware systems. This combination can be used to automatically reduce information overflow by filtering irrelevant data. Furthermore, a real-time information retrieval process without manual search im pulses is provided. We also present a prototype as a proof of concept in order to validate feasibility and benefit.

Cloud computing as a facility for outsourcing IT related tasks is a growing trend. Customer-driven application deployment in public clouds has to be secure and flexible by means of easing security configuration as well as by avoiding the vendor lock-in problem. In this paper we present an approach intending to meet these needs by (1) easing security configuration(s), (2) automating the consideration of security best practices and adding/enabling anonymity components at-runtime, and (3) by using Open Virtualization Format (OVF) in order to overcome the vendor lock-in problem. The requirements gathering is based on the needs of three projects from different business domains, the EU FP7 digital.me project, the multidisciplinary iFishWatcher/iAngle combined project and the joint german-french research and development project ReSCUe IT. All projects require empowering lay as well as experienced customers to (re-)deploy their own applications and migrate them easily by considering security thereby. Supporting tailorability of the deployed environment by adding anonymity components at-runtime without downtimes is a specific requirement in these projects. We present first results and discuss experiences and future work directions.

The objective of service-oriented computing (SOC) is to construct software applications out of appropriate services available and executing in place anywhere across the Web. To achieve this objective requires that techniques for discovering and engaging services be developed and used across the lifetime of the service-based applications. Succeeding with SOC in this broader sense presupposes that additional techniques be developed for ensuring desired quality of service metrics and service-level agreements. The crucial aspect of using services is thus their governance. In this paper, we describe a conceptual modelling approach that integrates organisational and coordination theories to achieve contextualised service governance. The approach allows for the development and analysis of dynamic, flexible, and robust service-oriented business applications.

Due to increasing spread of mobile equipment many companies face the opportunity to supply their employees with mobile enterprise applications. Since a 'mobile enterprise application' is not (!) just a 'mobile' enterprise application the selection of a suited system architecture is not trivial. Mobile enterprise applications entail different requirements (esp. concerning security), different platforms and different concepts for management. The paper analyses distinct requirements of mobile enterprise applications, discusses concepts for managing mobile enterprise applications and evaluates major mobile platforms. Thus companies get empowered to select a suited combination of platform and architecture that support the security and management requirements for their mobile enterprise application.

In the area of business process management, mastering variability is as important as handling re-use. This paper presents
an approach for annotating business process model activities with variant indicating attachments. Thereby, maintaining
business process variant models will become more convenient since the modeler gets presented alternatives for the
current business process model on the basis of an underlying reference process model – but without the complexity of
reference modeling itself. The presented annotation is independent of a distinct process modeling notation and works
across several views of business processes.

Interdisciplinary communities involve people and knowledge from different disciplines in addressing a common challenge. Differing perspectives, processes, methods, tools, vocabularies, and standards are problems that arise in this context. We present an approach to support bringing together disciplines based on a common body of knowledge (CBK), in which knowledge from different disciplines is collected, integrated, and structured. The novelty of our approach is twofold: first, it introduces a CBK ontology, which allows one to semantically enrich contents in order to be able to query the CBK in a more elaborate way afterwards. Second, it heavily relies on user participation in building up a CBK, making use of the Semantic MediaWiki as a platform to support collaborative writing. The CBK ontology is backed by a conceptual framework, consisting of concepts to structure the knowledge, to provide access options to it, and to build up a common terminology. To ensure a high quality of the provided contents and to sustain the community’s commitment, we further present organizational means as part of our approach. We demonstrate our work using the example of a Network of Excellence EU project, which aims at bringing together researchers and practitioners from services computing, security and software engineering.

Kooperationen zwischen Forschern und die Vergleichbarkeit von Forschungsleistungen sind – sowohl auf nationaler als auch auf internationaler Ebene – wesentliches Merkmal der Wissenschaften. Aktuell sehen sich die wissenschaftlichen Disziplinen, und darunter nicht zuletzt die Wirtschaftsinformatik (WI), einem darüber hinausgehenden politischen Druck zur Internationalisierung ausgesetzt. Bevor im Hinblick auf eine stärkere Internationalisierung strukturelle Anpassungen vorgenommen werden, empfiehlt es sich jedoch, Stärken und Schwächen bislang tradierter Strukturen und Verfahren bewusst zu reflektieren, um Chancen und Risiken von Veränderungen abzuwägen. Das vorliegende Werk widmet sich dieser Aufgabe mit spezifischem Fokus auf die Disziplin WI im deutschsprachigen Raum: Hierzu werden die Forschungskonzeptionen der WI und seines internationalen Pendants Information Systems (IS) im nordamerikanischen Raum vergleichend beschrieben und bewertet.

Kern der Arbeit ist eine Publikationsanalyse von insgesamt 1507 Beiträgen, die in einschlägigen wissenschaftlichen WI- bzw. IS-Publikationsorganen zwischen 1999 und 2004 veröffentlicht wurden. Zur Klassifikation der Beiträge wurde in einem iterativen Prozess ein differenzierter begrifflicher Bezugsrahmen entwickelt, der sowohl das thematische als auch das methodische Spektrum der analysierten Beiträge rekonstruiert. Im Ergebnis ist jede Publikation des untersuchten Korpus anhand von mindestens vier Zuordnungen zu Kategorien aus den Bereichen Forschungsgegenstand, Forschungsziel, Art des Zugangs und Begründungsverfahren beschrieben.

Die Auswertung des begrifflichen Bezugsrahmens und der Zuordnungen orientiert sich an drei Forschungsfragen. Diese beziehen sich auf (1) die gewählten Forschungsziele und eingesetzten Forschungsmethoden, (2) die auf den Forschungsgegenstand eingenommenen Perspektiven und (3) die unterschiedliche Rolle von IT-Artefakten in der WI- bzw. IS-Forschung. Die Menge der klassifizierten WI- und IS-Publikationen wird entsprechend der Forschungsfragen und mit Hilfe der Begriffe des Bezugsrahmens zunächst beschreibend charakterisiert. Die anschließende Bewertung zielt darauf einzuschätzen, inwiefern die tatsächliche Forschung die von den Disziplinen selbst aufgestellten Forderungen, insbesondere bezüglich Wissenschaftlichkeit und Anwendungsorientierung, erfüllt. Zur Erklärung der identifizierten Eigenschaften der WI- und IS-Forschung werden die historische Entwicklung und institutionelle Rahmenbedingungen der Disziplinen berücksichtigt.

Die Ergebnisse der Arbeit liefern ein differenziertes Bild der Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschiede sowie der Stärken und Schwächen der analysierten WI- und IS-Forschung. Die identifizierten Stärken-Schwächen-Profile weisen für die Disziplinen deutliche und vielfach zueinander komplementäre Unterschiede auf.

Abschließend werden Handlungsoptionen für die Disziplin WI entwickelt, die vor dem Hintergrund der Analyse geeignet erscheinen, um die WI langfristig national und international erfolgreich als wissenschaftliche und gleichzeitig anwendungsorientierte Disziplin zu positionieren.

With an increasing demand for higher value services, comprehensive support for service customization, provisioning and management is needed. This paper details ongoing research work regarding a service management approach, which supports the handling of service artifacts during the service lifecycle. The approach introduces an information model for e-Service Management, as well as a tailored view concept to provide individual views to participating stakeholders. The outlined approach tackles nonfunctional management issues which lead to better maintainable, adaptable and extendable service systems.

doi.org/10.17185/duepublico/47075

This paper discusses the combination of context injection, metadata enrichment and information broking with current semantic web and community oriented concepts in order to optimize the search and retrieval process of relevant information. The presented approach focuses the shift from information pull to information push, and thus reduces the effort on finding the needed information for a specific issue in a concrete context.

Well-defined software development processes are rare established. This especially is true for agile software development processes, which become more and more popular. The paper evaluates how far agile software developing processes can be seen as a kind of business processes. This forms the basis for the selective transferring of methods and tools from the field of business processes to the field of software development processes.

Architecting is a communication intensive task in which architectural knowledge is shared between the architect and the stakeholders. The software architect’s communicative action is often conducted face-to-face, e.g. in presentations and workshops. A software architecture documentation as a carrier of explicit architectural knowledge can also be seen as an architect’s communicative action. This perspective opens the door for treating a software architecture documentation as an expression of an asynchronous knowledge communication process enabling the application of principles from communication theory. In this paper this perspective is taken and specific requirements are derived for software architecture knowledge management tools with respect to the contextoriented communication model.

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Die Informationsvisualisierung trägt dazu bei, die Entwicklung und Wartung von Softwaresystemen und insbesondere die Beherrschung der Systemkomplexität zu erleichtern. Einzelne Softwaresysteme werden durch fortgeschrittene technologische Möglichkeiten immer weiter zu hochintegrierten Informationssystemlandschaften vernetzt, die einem stark dynamischen Umfeld mit nicht mehr vorhersehbaren Wechselwirkungen unterliegen. Der vorliegende Beitrag beschäftigt sich mit der Usability von 3D-Interfaces zur Visualisierung solcher Systemlandschaften.

Dabei gilt es insbesondere, die Nutzerfreundlichkeit der Darstellung von, sowie der Interaktion mit Massendaten und Systemstrukturen zu berücksichtigen. Die Herausforderungen beim Design dreidimensionaler Sichten liegen vor allem in der Architektur der Elemente durch geeignete Layout-Konzepte, der Darstellung visueller Elemente für unterschiedliche Zielgruppen sowie dem Mapping von logischen auf visuelle Dimensionen und Merkmale. Im Speziellen wird der Fokus auf die Interaktions- und Navigationsmöglichkeiten durch die Nutzer gerichtet.

Zur Evaluierung dieser Interaktions- und Visualisierungskonzepte steht ein 3D-Prototyp auf Basis des sogenannten „Generic View“ Konzeptes zur Verfügung. Dieser ermöglicht es, zahlreiche kontextspezifische Sichten auf Informationssystemlandschaften unter Berücksichtigung von Relevanzkriterien einzelner Nutzer „just-in-time“ zu erzeugen.

Die Entwicklungen zeigen, dass auf Basis dreidimensionaler Darstellungsformen andere Qualitäten bezüglich der Visualisierung und Interaktion erzielt werden können. So ist es bspw. möglich Abhängigkeiten unterschiedlicher Elemente über verschiedene Abstraktionsebene hinweg darzustellen. Des Weiteren kann durch innovative Interaktionsformen der kognitive
Workload bei der Systemanalyse reduziert werden.

Flexibility is the argument brought forward when preparing enterprises for the (uncertain) future. As business process management (BPM) aims at the methodical design of goal-oriented business processes, the world of change added 'flexibility' to the existing goals 'quality', 'time' and 'costs'. This paper addresses the topic of flexibility focusing on BPM in order to establish a definition of flexibility suited to serve the different research areas, so far each covering flexibility with a particular view. Based on the three levels of flexibility presented in this paper an approach will be documented how business processes can be improved using these levels.

With regard to increasing interdependencies between people, IT and organization the demand for intermediation within this area of tension rises. The question is, to what extent the current profile of Business Informatics practitioners is suited to meet this demand. In order to find an answer to this question, we analyzed the current profile of Business Informatics using a structuring model. Based on the results showing both existing and missing hard and soft facets of the profile we suggest possible building blocks for the curricula of an alternative Business Informatics profile.

Praxisorientierung ist ein wesentliches Merkmal des Selbstbildnisses der wissenschaftlichen Disziplin Wirtschaftsinformatik (WI). In verschiedenen Äußerungen und Publikationen von Disziplinvertretern – also aus der Innensicht der Disziplin – wird deutlich, dass diese die WI insgesamt und insbesondere bezüglich des Ideals der Praxisorientierung als durchaus erfolgreich ansehen (vgl. Schauer 2007a, S. 33). Wie die WI von Vertretern der Praxis als Zielgruppe (oder „Kunden“) der Forschung und Lehre der WI wahrgenommen wird, wurde – soweit der Autorin bekannt – bisher noch nicht systematisch erhoben.

Dieser Forschungsbericht präsentiert die Ergebnisse einer Umfrage unter IT-Entscheidern im deutschsprachigen Raum zur Bestimmung der Außensicht auf den Erfolg der WI. Die Einschätzung der Praxisvertreter wird gemeinsam mit der Bewertung der Disziplin durch akademische WI-Vertreter interpretiert. Dies ermöglicht ein umfassendes Bild der Stärken und Schwächen der Praxisorientierung der WI. Im Ergebnis wird aufgezeigt, in welchen Bereichen aus Forschung und Lehre die Disziplin WI (auch) aus Sicht der Praxis als erfolgreich bewertet werden kann und in welchen Bereichen Verbesserungspotential bezüglich der Orientierung an den Anforderungen der Praxis bzw. bezüglich eines effektiven Austauschs mit der Praxis bestehen.

1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This paper discusses the use of existing and new microformats for semantic injection of institutional websites in order to make their valuable information more accessible to students – directly via client tools or indirectly via information portals.

1.1. Background

The Bologna process increased the demand for information on degree programmes. The Faculty of Business Administration and Economics at University of Duisburg-Essen uses two higher-educationspecific content management solutions to satisfy this (and other) information demands by web-based course catalogues.

Thanks to pan-European standardized degrees students may face a wide market for degree programmes. In the best case institutional websites present detailed information on degree programmes and related information in an intuitive way. Of course additional effort is necessary to compare different universities, their academics and degrees due to a lack of consistency and homogeneity.

Microformats as a semantic technology enable the markup of existing websites and thus create semantically rich information. Since the two systems at the Faculty of Business Administration and economics are template based, inserting microformats seems an easily applicable solution – suitable microformats assumed.

1.2. Focus

After discussing the problem statement and introducing the concept of microformats the paper firstly presents the analysis of existing microformats for the given scenario. Secondly Metadata for Learning Opportunities (MLO) is reviewed as a possible blueprint for the semantic structure of course information to design new microformats for higher education. Thirdly scenarios for the future usage of these microformats in form of new application concepts for access of course related information are presented: web browser add-ons understanding the semantic, client tools retrieving the embedded semantic without the indirection via a web browser (e.g. a course catalogue reader for smart phones) and information portals retrieving semantically enhanced information of institutional websites from different universities for comparing their degree programmes.

1.3. Conclusion

This paper closes with a reflection of the approach, the current state of the analysis, possible alternatives and open work items.<span id="1252314128046S"> <span id="1252314278278S"> </span>
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Im vorliegenden Beitrag wird die Frage der Beeinflussung der Disziplin Wirtschaftsinformatik durch Modethemen aus wissenschaftstheoretischer Sicht näher untersucht. Auf Basis der Literatur werden Thesen bzgl. wissenschaftspraktischer Kennzeichen (Ursprung, langfristige Lerneffekte) und wissenschaftstheoretischer Fragestellungen (begriffliche Kontingenz, Originalität) aufgestellt. Die Diskussion der Thesen erfolgt anhand ausgewählter Moden der Wirtschaftsinformatik und erlaubt erste Schlussfolgerungen bzgl. der Rolle von Moden für die Disziplin. Unter Rückgriff auf Ergebnisse einer Umfrage unter CIOs im deutschsprachigen Raum werden abschließend Möglichkeiten und Grenzen der Einflussnahme der Disziplin auf Modethemen in der Praxis diskutiert.

Die wissenschaftliche Disziplin Wirtschaftsinformatik (WI) befindet sich in einem Veränderungsprozess, welcher sowohl durch technologischen Fortschritt in der Praxis als auch durch die Entwicklung ihrer Nachbardisziplinen Betriebswirtschaftslehre und Informatik beeinflusst wird. Zudem muss die Wirtschaftsinformatik die Vorgaben des Bologna-Prozesses umsetzen und in geeigneter Weise mit dem zunehmenden Druck zur Internationalisierung in Forschung und Lehre umgehen. Vor diesem Hintergrund widmet sich der vorliegende Forschungsbericht der Untersuchung des aktuellen Entwicklungsstatus der Disziplin Wirtschaftsinformatik bzgl. der Umstellung auf konsekutive Studiengänge, der institutionellen Integration der Professuren sowie der Internationalisierung in Forschung und Lehre. Schwerpunkt der Analyse sind dabei WI-Professuren und -Studiengänge an Universitäten in Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz. Eine 2007 durchgeführte Umfrage zur Erhebung der Daten für den neuen Studienführer Wirtschaftsinformatik sowie die früheren Studienführer Wirtschaftsinformatik dienen als Datengrundlage.

Die Analyseergebnisse zeigen u. a., dass die WI den Prozess der Umstellung auf konsekutive Bachelor- und Masterstudiengänge bereits abgeschlossen hat. Mehr als die Hälfte (ca. 60 %) aller WI-Professuren ist schon seit 1992 (Erscheinungsjahr des ersten Studienführers WI) auf Fachbereichsebenen den Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften zugeordnet. Der Anteil der WI-Professuren, die auf dieser Ebene der Informatik zugeordnet sind, liegt (immer noch) deutlich unter 10 %. Neben dieser relativen Kontinuität der institutionellen Einbettung gibt es diverse Hinweise auf die zunehmende Etablierung der WI als eigenständige wissenschaftliche Disziplin: Beispielsweise ist der Anteil der WI-Professuren, die als „spezielle BWL“ bezeichnet werden, seit 1992 um mehr als die Hälfte zurückgegangen (20 % auf 9 %). Zudem gibt es heute eine Vielzahl dedizierter WI-Institute: Mehr als 50 % der WI-Professuren sind heute einem solchen zugeordnet. Der Anteil englischsprachiger Bezeichner für Studiengänge als auch Professuren ist stark angestiegen, was zumindest vordergründig als ein zunehmender Trend zur Internationalisierung interpretiert werden kann.

Der Artikel fasst die Ergebnisse einer von der Universität Duisburg-Essen in Zusammenarbeit mit der Materna GmbH durchgeführten Untersuchung zusammen. Analysiert wurde, welche Auswirkungen eine Erhöhung des Service Level einer Service Level-Kennzahl jeweils auf die verschiedenen Kostenarten besitzt. Hierzu wurden zunächst die relevanten Kostenarten ermittelt sowie eine spezielle grafische Notation für die Ergebnisdarstellung entworfen. Die Untersuchung zeigt, wie das IT-Controlling wertvolle Informationen für die Gestaltung von Service-Verträgen ermitteln kann.