Fields of research

This field of research aims at analyzing the organization of the design process of information systems in situations of labor division. The main focus lies on the interorganizational division of labor. It is examined under which circumstances it is sensible to outsource certain IT functions to external domestic or foreign organizations and how the resulting outsourcing relationships should be managed, both from the client’ and the vendor perspective. Important current issues concern nearshoring and offshoring, business process outsourcing, as well as such new forms of IT service provision as Software as a Service. Furthermore, processes within the software industry are examined such as the evolution and management of partner networks or questions concerning the export of software products and services abroad.

The research area “Distributed, Collaborative Software Development” examines the concepts, methods, and tools enabling distributed collaboration in different software development scenarios. Here, the main research focus lies on (a) the regional or global distribution of human and software resources and (b) the organizational distribution of assignments among several companies and organizational units. Methodically, both causal relations in work-shared software development are examined and specific solutions in the form of methods and tools are designed. To date, main topics have been globally distributed requirements engineering, traceability, and change management, as well as the intercompany collaboration in software ecosystems.

The Chair of Business Administration and Information Systems examines the application of process-supporting information technology in two application domains.  

Event-oriented architectures in hospitals: the health care sector as a growth market is confronted with an explosion of costs and a shortage in resources. The challenge here lies in the realization of rationalization gains in service provision. The chair's research primarily focuses on the improvement and efficient design of service provision through the development and adaption of information and communication technologies for process management, decision making, and organization design.  

Mobile technologies in job production: for the coordination and control of work cycles in job production (e.g. in the construction industry), up-to-date information about work progress and resource utilization is needed constantly. In this context, the chair examines the potential of mobile technologies to gather and provide necessary information and therefore shorten the processing times of projects in job production.