Bio:

Carolin is a post-doc at the Chair of Information Systems & Transformation Management at the University of Duisburg-Essen. With an academic background in business process management in the health sector, she now focuses her research on the governance of lightweight IT, digital transformation, and process mining.

Curriculum Vitae:

Academic Background

• 2021 to 2025: PhD student at the University of Muenster
• 2018 to 2020: M. Sc. in Technical Consulting and Management at Hochschule Hamm-Lippstadt
• 2014 to 2018: B. Eng. in Biomedical Technology at Hochschule Hamm-Lippstadt

Work Experience

• Since April 2025: Research Associate/Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Chair of Information Systems & Transformation Management at UDE
• 2020 to 2025: Research Assistant at the South Westphalia University of Applied Sciences, Hagen, Germany
• 2016 to 2020: Intern & Working Student for Quality Management and Process and Quality Management at Zapp Systems GmbH

Honours and Awards:

2022

Best Paper nomination at HICSS-55 for “The Fear of Losing Control – What Prevents the Automation of Business Processes in Sensitive Areas“

Publications:

• Plattfaut, Ralf; Vollenberg, Carolin; Ergün, Ali; Rieger, Ronja: Citizen development as boundary spanning in the agile-digital transformation: the case of a German healthcare insurance organization. In: Gruppe. Interaktion. Organisation. Zeitschrift für Angewandte Organisationspsychologie (GIO), Vol2026 (2026). doi:10.1007/s11612-026-00895-8Abstract Details Citation

  This article in the journal “Gruppe.Interaktion.Organisation” (GIO) discusses the effects of citizen development as a boundary-spanning activity on the success of agile-digital transformations. Organizations pursuing an agile-digital transformation face persistent tensions between business and IT, arising from divergent goals, competencies, and ways of working. While prior research highlights these tensions, less is known about how organizations practically overcome these in everyday digital innovation work. This study investigates how Collaborative Citizen Developer Teams (CCDTs) and low-code/no-code (LC/NC) technologies enable boundary spanning between business and IT in the context of an agile-digital transformation. Drawing on an in-depth case study of a German statutory health insurance organization, we analyze how citizen developers facilitate and engage in joint development of LC/NC artifacts between business and IT. Our findings suggest that CCDT members act as institutionalized boundary spanners by translating business needs into technical functionalities and coordinating across organizational domains, while LC/NC artifacts, such as BPMN models, prototypes, test environments, and the LC/NC automations, function as boundary objects that enable shared understanding, joint problem solving, and iterative refinement. Together, these boundary spanning mechanisms of the CCDT reduce interdepartmental tensions, accelerate solution development, and support decentralized yet compliant digital innovation. The study contributes to research on agile–digital transformation, showcasing the boundary spanning role of citizen development and LC/NC in agile-digital transformation.

• Vollenberg, Carolin; Plattfaut, Ralf; Hoffmann, Felix; Coners, André: How does IT feature use spread within an organisation: insights from an ethnography. In: Information Systems and e-Business Management (2025). doi:10.1007/s10257-025-00715-4 Details Citation
• Plattfaut, Ralf; Vollenberg, Carolin; Francois, Peter Alois; Aberman, Max; Nacke, Jannis; Coners, André: Process Mining as a Driver for Business Process Management: The Case of the Enervie Group. In: Vom Brocke, Jan; Mendling, Jan; Rosemann, Michael (Ed.): Business Process Management Cases Vol. 3. Springer Nature Switzerland, Cham, 2025, p. 211-225. doi:10.1007/978-3-031-80793-0_16 Details Citation
• Andraschko, Lars; Quick, Julie; Vollenberg, Carolin; Oshri, Ilan: Paper-a-Thon Paper: Unveiling Pathways of Social Media Use for Social and Environmental Sustainability Mindfulness. In: Proceedings of the 45th International Conference on Information Systems, ICIS 2024. Bangkok, Thailand, 2024. Details Full textCitation
• Vollenberg, Carolin; Hackl, Johanna; Matthies, Benjamin; Coners, André: Acceptance of RPA in Public Sector Institutions. In: Journal of Organizational Computing and Electronical Commerce, Vol34 (2024), No 4, p. 400-418. Details Citation
• Hofmann, Felix; Vollenberg, Carolin; Coners, André: Praktische Ansätze für die medizinische Prozessentwicklung im Krankenhaus. In: Henke, Viola; Hülsken, Gregor; Schneider, Henning; Varghese, Julian (Ed.): Health Data Management. 1st Edition. Springer Gabler, Wiesbaden, 2024, p. 543-551. doi:10.1007/978-3-658-43236-2_46 Details Citation
• Coners, André; Matthies, Benjamin; Vollenberg, Carolin; Koch, Julian: Data Skills for Everyone! (?)–An Approach to Assessing the Integration of Data Literacy and Data Science Competencies in Higher Education. In: Journal of Statistics and Data Science Education, Vol33 (2024), No 1, p. 90-115. doi:10.1080/26939169.2024.2334408 Details Citation
• Wang, Yuchen; Sivanathan, Shariga; Parekh, Harsh; Vollenberg, Carolin: Paper-a-Thon Paper: From Hand-On to Hand-Off: Upskilling Care Work in the Case of Virtual Nursing. In: Proceedings of the 44th International Conference on Information Systems, ICIS 2023. Hyderabad, India, 2023. Details Full textCitation
• Vollenberg, Carolin; Plattfaut, Ralf; Coners, André: How do Organizations react to Unintended Affordances? An Ethnography in Healthcare. In: Paul, Souren; Sarker, Suprateek; Tuunainen, Virpi Kristiina; Fernandez, Walter; Nandhakumar, Joe; Santhanam, Radhika (Ed.): Proceedings of the 44th International Conference on Information Systems, ICIS 2023, Hyderabad, India. Association for Information Systems, 2023. Details Full textCitation
• Koch, Julian; Vollenberg, Carolin; Matthies, Benjamin; Coners, André: Robotic process flexibilization in the term of crisis: a case study of robotic process automation in a public health department. In: Proceedings of the 30thEuropean Conference on Information Systems (ECIS 2022). Timisoara, Romania, 2022. Details Full textCitation
• Coners, André; Vollenberg, Carolin; Aberman, Max; Nacke, Jannis; Plattfaut, Ralf: Process Mining als Instrument des Controllings: Transparenz über die Einkaufsprozesse eines Energieversorgers. In: Controlling - Zeitschrift für erfolgsorientierte Unternehmenssteuerung, Vol34 (2022), p. 62-69. Details Citation
• Koch, Julian F.; Vollenberg, Carolin; Plattfaut, Ralf; Coners, André: The Fear of Losing Control - What Prevents the Automation of Business Processes in Sensitive Areas. In: Proceedings of the 55th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. 2022. doi:10.24251/HICSS.2022.753 Details Citation
• Vollenberg, Carolin; Hoffmann, Felix; Coners, André; Plattfaut, Ralf: Omni-Kanal-Transformation im Krankenhaus – eine Fallstudie. In: HMD Praxis der Wirtschaftsinformatik, Vol59 (2022), p. 1478-1493. doi:10.1365/s40702-022-00915-3 Details Citation
• Koch, Julian; Vollenberg, Carolin; Matthies, Benjamin; Coners, André: RPA-Entwicklung mit Digital Twins: Eine Fallstudie in der Öffentlichen Verwaltung. In: Feldmann, Carsten (Ed.): Praxishandbuch Robotic Process Automation (RPA). Springer, Gabler, Wiesbaden, 2022, p. 237-251. Details Citation
• Bade, Friederike Maria; Vollenberg, Carolin; Koch, Julian; Koch, Jannis; Coners, André: The Dark Side of Process Mining. How Identifiable Are Users Despite Technologically Anonymized Data? A Case Study from the Health Sector. In: Di Ciccio, Claudio; Dijkman, Remco; Del Río Ortega, Adela; Rinderle-Ma, Stefanie (Ed.): Business Process Management. Springer International Publishing, Cham, 2022, p. 219-233. doi:10.1007/978-3-031-16103-226 Details Citation
• Vollenberg, Carolin; Koch, Julian; Trampler, Michael; Bade, Friederike-Maria; Coners, André; Plattfaut, Ralf: Die Entwicklungsbeschleunigung von Robotic Process Automation Lösungen – Fallstudie einer deutschen Gesundheitsbehörde. In: HMD Praxis der Wirtschaftsinformatik, Vol58 (2021), p. 1244-1263. doi:10.1365/s40702-021-00764-6 Details Citation
• Trampler, Michael; Koch, Julian; Vollenberg, Carolin; Coners, André: Structure Mining: Deconstruction of Data Science From the Perspective of Teaching Literature. In: Proceedings of the 25th Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems. 2021. Details Citation
• Plattfaut, Ralf; Coners, André; Becker, Jörg; Vollenberg, Carolin; Koch, Julian F.; Godefroid, Marie; Halbach-Türscherl, David: Patient Portals in German Hospitals – Status Quo and Quo Vadis. In: Becker, Jörg; Dugas, Martin; Gieseke, Fabian; Hellingrath, Bernd; Hoeren, Thomas; Klein, Stefan; Kuchen, Herbert; Trautmann, Heike; Vossen, Gottfried (Ed.): ERCIS Working Papers. 2020. Details Full textCitation

Reviewing and consulting activities:

• Associate Editor of the track “General Track” of the Internationale Tagung Wirtschaftsinformatik (WI) 2025