Faculty of Economics and Business Administration

Business Information Systems

The Department of Business Administration and Business Information Systems, in particular E-Business and E-Entrepreneurship led by Prof. Tobias Kollmann, focuses on “E-Entrepreneurship” and thus on all matters relating to business creation and development in the digital economy (www.netcampus.de). Both individual topics related to the topics of electronic business processes and entrepreneurship, as well as interdisciplinary research with the traditional fields of Business Administration and Business Information Systems are addressed. The Chair’s research work is regularly published in leading international journals (e.g. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice). The Department regularly receives awards at international conferences for its conference contributions (e.g. AOM Annual Meeting Best Paper Proceedings). The chair holder's textbooks “E-Business” and “E-Entrepreneurship” are already available in the 6th edition and are regarded as standard works in their subject areas. A great deal of attention is also paid by politics, business and society to the start-up monitors, “German Start-up Monitor” and “European Start-up Monitor”, which analyse the development of start-ups in Germany and Europe. The chair holder has developed the “E-Business Model Generator” (www.e-business-generator.de) – a tool not only for the reconstruction of digital business models (e-model generation), but also for the digital transformation of existing business processes (e-business generation). In 2016, the chair holder published the bestselling book “Deutschland 4.0”, which describes how Germany can digitally transform its society, economy and politics (www.deutschland40.digital).

The Chair of Business Information Systems and Integrated Information Systems (Prof. Reinhard Schütte) focuses on the following teaching and research focal points within Business Information Systems:

Management of Large Enterprise Systems (MLES)
Retail Enterprise Systems (RES)
Effect and cost-effectiveness of IT systems (WIWIT)
Enterprise Transformation (ET)
Methodological approaches in Business Information Systems (WIWISS)

In a time of digitization, Business Information Systems is facing considerable scientific challenges. It is therefore not only examining and developing new technologies for the design of information systems, but is also focusing on the design of methods for shaping future organizational systems. The digitization, which is impacting on the interrelated levels of the individual, companies and society, requires a new perspective on the entity of companies. Although automation is an old phenomenon, both the technical systems and the entire company as a system are undergoing a significant change process. There are not only “how” questions to be asked, but also “why” questions. In this context, the Department has been particularly successful in industry-funded third-party projects that focus on the digitization of commercial enterprises. The use of application systems is ex ante assumed as increasing productivity – something which has not gone unchallenged in scientific discourse on the productivity paradox of information technology. The Chair therefore focuses, based on research in the context of an externally-funded project, on the impact analysis and benefit determination of the use of application systems in companies. The result will be a prototype that, using the example of trading companies, should enable support with the task of profitability forecasting and project-based controlling. Another project focuses on the roll-out management of applications that have been developed as template products and which are to be implemented in retail groups across many countries and continents. The third project focuses on a Big Data problem. To this end, the Chair collaborates with technology and retail companies to render complex decision models for price and assortment optimization accessible using empirical data. The findings of the Chair will be incorporated into prototypes and publications.