The Art of Structuring: Bridging the Gap Between Information Systems Research and Practice

535 Pages·2019·19.805 MB·English

by  Katrin Bergener, Michael Räckers, Armin Stein

Katrin Bergener
Michael Räckers
Armin Stein Editors
The Art
of Structuring
Bridging the Gap Between
Information Systems Research
and Practice
The Art of Structuring
ä
Katrin Bergener Michael R ckers
(cid:129) (cid:129)
Armin Stein
Editors
The Art of Structuring
Bridging the Gap Between Information
Systems Research and Practice
123
Editors
Katrin Bergener Michael Räckers
Department ofInformation Systems Department ofInformation Systems
University of Münster University of Münster
Münster,Germany Münster,Germany
Armin Stein
Department ofInformation Systems
University of Münster
Münster,Germany
ISBN978-3-030-06233-0 ISBN978-3-030-06234-7 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-06234-7
LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2018965424
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Foreword
Opening this book, you may get the impression that you are looking at a
Who-is-Who in Information Systems research—and, in a way, you’d certainly be
rightaboutthat.Whatbeganwiththesimpleideatocreateanhonorarypublication
forourdearcolleagueJörgsoonturnedintoanimpressiveaccountofcontributions
from all over the world.
How did this happen?
First,timecertainlyplayedanimportantrole:JörgwasappointedFullProfessor
of Information Systems at the age of 31. Despite his still youthful appearance, he
hasthusbeeninofficeforalmost30yearsnowandhaspromotednumerousyoung
academics,whotodayplayimportantrolesinbothresearchandindustry.Beingthe
charmingandenergeticcharacterthatheis,Jörghasnotonlyservedthecommunity
asagreatthinkerbuthasalsobecomeavaluedcolleagueandfriendtomanyofus.
Second, another reason for Jörg’s impressive network is certainly his great
scientificimpact.WhentalkingaboutJörgandhisimpact,ofcourse,the“RetailH”
needstobementioned.SomecolleaguesmayrecallthismodeltoappearonJörg’s
slides, regardless of what he has been invited to talk about, providing a great
example of the many things we can learn from him. One of these things is his
persistency in what he believes in, and one of the things he believes in (and lives
by)isthatInformationSystemsstudentsmusthavethreemainabilities:namely,to
(1) structure, (2) structure, and (3) structure.
There couldn’t be a better title for this book.
But is it only the combination of time and impact that has led us here? There’s
anotherreason:It’sJörg.Hecertainlyisoneofhiskind,agreatcharacter,somuch
funtoworkwith,solidasarock(andcoolas“icebricks”),alwayspositive,andso
encouraging. We all like to remember advice such as “Yes, others may work on
this, too—but we will do it better” or “Don’t worry, the workshop will be great—
we don’t need to know more than the others, just to think faster.” This kind of
inspiration also becomes apparent when organizing conferences with Jörg, serving
oncommitteeswithhim,orcoauthoringpapers—which,Ithink,istheactualreason
why so many of his colleagues and friends have contributed chapters to this book.
v
vi Foreword
Dear Jörg, with this book, over 80 authors would like to say thank you. We all
aregratefulforthemanyspecialmomentswewereabletoexperiencewithyou.We
would like to express our deepest appreciation for your remarkable achievements.
Personally, I have been fortunate to learn from you for many years: As a young
student atthe University of Münster I sat in your lectures, and later you supported
me during my dissertation and habilitation—and in the numerous other activities
thatwouldfollowlater.I’vealwaysbeenhonoredtoworkwithyou,anditisagreat
pleasure for me to write this foreword.
I would like to applaud the people who have made this book possible. Katrin
(Bergener), Michael (Räckers), and Armin (Stein) not only took the initiative but
havealsodoneallthework—anotherexampleforthegreatspirityouarecreatingin
your team. I wish all readers a lot offun with this book. You can look forward to
many interesting chapters, both personal chapters that pay tribute to Jörg and
innovative chapters that present completely new perspectives and thoughts—a
unique compilation ofcurrentcontributions fromthe fieldofInformationSystems.
Vaduz, Liechtenstein Jan vom Brocke
JanvomBrockeisProfessorofInformationSystems,
the Hilti Chair of Business Process Management and
Director of the Institute of Information Systems at the
University of Liechtenstein. He has published, among
others, in MIS Quarterly (MISQ), Journal of
Management Information Systems (JMIS), Journal of
Information Technology (JIT), European Journal of
Information Systems (EJIS), Information Systems
Journal (ISJ), Communications of the ACM (CACM),
and MIT Sloan Management Review (MIT SRM). He
has held various editorial roles and academic leader-
ship positions, and serves many organizations around
the world as invited speaker and trusted advisor (see:
www.janvombrocke.com).
Preface
“Strukturieren,strukturieren,strukturieren”—or,translatedtoEnglishnotsounding
so“hip”anymore“Tostructure,tostructure,tostructure”1—are,accordingtoJörg
Becker, the three core skills every “Wirtschaftsinformatik”2 aficionado should be
able to cover.
With this attitude, Jörg works at the Department of Information Systems at the
School for Business and Economics at the University of Münster since 1990. We
guess that all his academic offspring, 97 by the time of our editing, received the
“Strukturieren” infusion and understand the importance of adding structure to the
complexity of the world.
On January 27th, 2019, Jörg celebrated his 60th birthday. Together with 78
coauthors, having contributed to 50 articles, we want to praise his achievements
with this Festschrift called “The Art of Structuring.”
We asked the authors and their teams to think about the way they structure the
fieldinwhichthey work,what structure meanstothem andhow—intheiropinion
—structurebringsbenefittotheworld.Whenhavingbeenaskedifthecontributions
should be “real” scientific papers, humorous reflections, personal experiences with
Jörgoranyotherformofliterature,wereplied:“Doasyouwish.Thisbookiswhat
we make of it. Just keep in mind that you write it as a present to Jörg”.3
1Forournon-Germanreaders—theverb“Strukturieren”soundslike[ʃtʀʊktuˈʀiːʀən].Whetheryou
findthispleasanttotheearisuptoyou.
2Theliteraltranslationof“Wirtschaftsinformatik”toEnglishwouldbe“BusinessInformatics,”a
termthatiswidelyusedintheGerman-speakingInformationSystems(IS)community.Thereare
quitevividdiscussionsaboutthesimilaritiesandthedifferencesamong“Wirtschaftsinformatik,”
“BusinessInformatics”and“InformationSystems,”butforthesakeofneutralitywehappilynot
enterthisdiscussionhere.
3Ifthefirstpartsoundsfamiliartoyou,thereasonmightbethatyouarefamiliarwiththeERCIS
network. This unpronounceable acronym stands for “European Research Center for Information
Systems,” a global network of IS research institutions, which he heads as Academic Director.
Funny enough, “ERCIS is what we make of it” is his so not structured motive of the network,
leaving the partners the freedom to contribute as good as they can,which in theend—sois his
belief,andhisbeliefseemstobejustified—willresultinsomethinggood.
vii
viii Preface
Thesubmissionswereceivedarethereforeverydiverseinnature.Wehave“notso
serious, very personal” submissions, and “very serious, less personal” contribu-
tions,andmanyinthespacebetween.However,almostallofthemhave“structure”
as a Leitmotiv. The list of invited coauthors spans his academic offspring that
stayed in academia, his colleagues at the Department of Information Systems, his
colleagues at the University of Münster School of Business and Economics, col-
leagues from the ERCIS4 network, colleagues from joint projects, colleagues from
journal editorial boards, conference committees, special interest groups, and from
practice.
This explains the “structuring” part of the title. “The art” refers to two phe-
nomena: First, finding the structure in things (or entities) is a difficult task.
Explicatingthisinherentstructure,explaining anddescribingit,istoalarge extent
“art.” Second, it honors Jörg’s love for fine arts. Music, for one, is a perfect
example of structure in art. In general, the composition of music follows certain
rules.Simplyadheringtotherulesdoesnotcreategoodmusic.Itisanartistic(and
skilled!) act to make music pleasant and making it reach the audience. Another
example of the way how structure in the fine arts can inspire IS scholars and
practitionersisonethatJörglovestotell:Itisanagain artistic (andskilled!)actto
explicate the relevant structure of an entity by abstraction. Pablo Picasso did this
with his “Bull”: Although he successively leaves details away, the last instance
ofthebull’sdepictioncanstillbeinterpretedasitsorigin.Itisaskilltochoosethe
right details to leave away, and the ones to keep.
InJörg’sdeepestconviction,thesubtitle“BridgingtheGapbetweenISResearch
andPractice”shouldbetheunderlyinggoalofanyISresearcher.Everythingshould
happen for a reason. “Wirtschaftsinformatik” exists to empower organizations to
makeuseofInformationTechnologytotheirbenefits.Organizationsdonothaveto
be Businesses, or, negatively seen, entities striving for financial excess, as
“Wirtschaftsinformatik” critics often postulate; they might be Non-Governmental
Organisations (NGOs), Public Administrations, Higher Education Institutions, or
Associations, even Individuals. The non-exhaustive enumeration above reflects
addressees ofresearchprojects Jörgandhis chair wereinvolvedin,butalso topics
covered by the coauthors of this book. Although very pragmatic in nature, Jörg
believes in grounded research that should then be transferred to practice.
Naturally, “Wirtschaftsinformatik” also and inherently bridges the gap between
“Computer Science” (CS) and “Business Administration” (BA): Imagine a stock
trader talking to an Assembler programmer about features to be included into the
next generation market surveillance system. These two fields need a connecting
body that speaks both languages—or at least can understand the problem and the
solutionspaceofbothsidesandbringingthemtogetherinthebestway.Oneofthe
most prominent means to do this are conceptual models, be it BPMN models,
icebricks models, PICTURE models, ER models, or UMLmodels. All of them try
to make both sides (CS and BA) understand each other at least to a certain extent.
Creatinggoodconceptualmodelsis—again!—followingsomerules,but,ontop,an
4SeetheexplanationoftheacronymERCISinthefootnoteabove,ifyouskippedit.
Preface ix
artistic act. Now, unfortunately, “Bridging the Gap between IS Research and
Practice, as well as between Business Administration and Computer Science, and
between Many Other Things” is a subtitle way too long for such a book, which
made us stick to the short version.
Getting to the content of the book. We were overwhelmed by the number of
positive replies that we received when we approached potential authors. Although
some expected us all to fail, as an inquiry one year before the publishing date was
seen as—nicely put—too optimistic, the people involved in making this book
happen proved them wrong. After the submission deadline (to be precise: after the
fourth submission deadline, i.e., once we received all feature-complete submis-
sions), we had the task to literally “structure” the articles for the table of contents.
Luckily, all three of us call Jörg our doctoral supervisor, which means we feel
infusedwithwhatever it is that supportstheactof structuring. If we did an artistic
act, we do not know.
As a simple start, we are happy to have received a foreword by Jan vom
Brocke, who spent his habilitation in Münster, and then moved to Liechtenstein,
where he stays connected with Jörg as one of the most active members of the
ERCIS network. As an introductory chapter, Heike Trautmann’s group at her
Chair of Information Systems and Statistics at the Department of Information
Systemsin Münster, structured Jörg’s work and providessome interestinginsights
into his publications.
Structuring the remaining 50 submissions, we independently, but intuitively,
cameupwithfivetopicclusters.Followingthe(lightweightversionofa)processof
a Delphi study, we decided on the following ones5:
Visions. The papers in this section have a rather discussing nature and partially
go beyond application. Considering the title of the book, Stefan Seidel provides a
very fitting and stimulating discussionaboutthe connection between structure and
digitaltechnologies.Healsotakesalookatthenounstructureandtherelatedverb
to structure in this context, nicely providing food for thought related to the title of
thisbook.RolandHoltenandChristophRosenkranzprovideacomfortingessay
about thelack of capabilities of Artificial Intelligences to structure theunknown, a
task that IS scholars and practitioners have to deal with every day. Like this,
humanswill—hopefully—remaintheonesincharge.StanisławWryczaprovidesa
thoughtful discussion on the structure of the Business Informatics field and the
influences it is exposed to. Shirley Gregor looks at knowledge-action structures
andtheirrelationtotheInformationSystemsdiscipline.Shearguesthatknowledge
canbeunderstoodasamachineform,thatguidesmachinesinitsactions.Assuch,
they deserve a closer look and consideration and open a field for further research.
5Weareawarethatwe,forsomecases,interpretedtheclustersabitmoreloosely,toavoidhaving
clusters containing only one element. Furthermore, the order in which the articles are being
described does not relate to the chapters but merely follows a content-approach. The articles in
theirrespectivechaptersaresortedalphabetically,followingthelastnameofthefirstcoauthor.
x Preface
Models. Models in any form and shape try to support the communication
between stakeholders. Several contributions within this cluster deal with reference
models,i.e.,informationmodelsthataredevelopedwiththeaimofbeingreusedfor
similarapplicationscenarios.ChristianJanieschandAxelWinkelmanncompare
the “Retail H,” an invention by Jörg, with Microsofts Common Data Model
(CDM) and, fortunately for Jörg, they come to the conclusion that the Retail H
performs better. Additionally, Karsten Kraume, Klaus Vormanns, and Jiaqing
Zhong propose an integrated reference model as a framework to structure trans-
formation. Thinking about reference models in general, Reinhard Schütte claims
that there is a low use of reference models in software development project and
reflectsonreasons,whyhopefulclaimsofresearchershavenotbeenproven.Apart
from reference models, another established research stream within this cluster is
conceptualmodeling.UlrichFrankraisesoneofthemostprominentquestionsthat
drives the conceptual modeling parts of our discipline: Will conceptual modeling
languages,thatcreatestaticmodels,orevenreferencemodels,stillbemeanstodeal
with theinherently dynamicand flexiblephenomenon of “Digital Transformation”
inthefuture?Hisoutlookprovidesareassuringassumptionthatconceptualmodels
willremainrelevantasameanstostructure,whichis—forsure—goodnewsforthe
jubilarian! Fittingly, Elmar Sinz gives an alternative view on modeling methods
suitable forconceptualmodelingwhileDimitrisKaragiannis,WilfridBork,and
Dominik Utz reflect on meta-models and conceptual modeling. In addition to the
papers on reference modeling and conceptual modeling, we received papers that
dealwithdifferenttypesofmodelsingeneral.JosvanHillegersbergcontributesto
thisclusteronmodelsbyreflectingonresearchonmaturitymodelsandconcluding
that research on maturity models does not have a high level of maturity. Robert
Winter outlines a data “black-boxing” research agenda to overcome the gap that
conceptual data models inappropriately capture the essence of how business
stakeholders analyze, design, and manage data-driven exploration. In line with the
title of this edited volume, Stephan Meisel bridges the gap between research and
practicewithhiscontribution.Hepostulatesanincreasingneedfordecisionsupport
systems that are able to solve dynamic decision problems and applies his ideas to
the contexts of service vehicle routing, energy storage management, and build to
order manufacturing. Ralf Knackstedt, Sebastian Bräuer, and Thorsten
Schoormann introduce three software prototypes for boosting model innovation
and reflect on visualizing and analyzing business models with respect to sustain-
abilitywhileHeinzLotharGrobdescribeshisownideaofmonetaryevaluationof
projects in the planning and control phase.
Processes. In this cluster, we collected submissions that at least to some extent
dealwiththe“self-contained,temporalandlogicalorder(paralleland/orserial)of
those activities, that are executed for the transformation of a business object with
the goal of accomplishing a given task.”6 Processes are, next to data, the most
important business elements to study. Within this cluster, overviews over the his-
tory and development of the field are given by Jan Mendling, Marlon Dumas,
6Becker,Kahn2003.