Bio:

Prof. Dr. Ralf Plattfaut is Professor for Information Systems and Transformation Management at the University of Duisburg-Essen since 2023. He heads the Process Innovation & Automation Lab and conducts research into digital transformation.

After studying and completing his Ph.D. in Information Systems at the Universities of Münster and Liechtenstein, he advised companies at McKinsey & Company on issues relating to the digitalization of work processes. From 2019 to 2023, he was Professor for Information Systems at the South Westphalia University of Applied Sciences. His research findings are regularly published in scientific journals and presented at conferences. In addition to his work as a professor, Ralf Plattfaut is a management consultant and keynote speaker.

Curriculum Vitae:

• Since 2023: Professor for Information Systems and Transformation Management, University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany

• 2019 to 2023: Professor for Business Informatics, South Westphalia University of Applied Sciences, Soest, Germany

• Since 2019: Member of the Advisory Board “Digitale Region menschlich gestalten” of the Regional Development Programme “Regionale 2025”

• 2013 to 2019: Management Consultant/Associate Partner at McKinsey & Company, Duesseldorf, Germany

• 2013: Research Associate at the Hertie School of Governance, Berlin, Germany

• 2009-2013: Research Assistant at the European Research Center for Information Systems, University of Muenster, Germany

Honours and Awards:

2022

Best Conference Paper nomination at ICIS 2022 and winner of the Best Paper in Track Award in the Societal Impact of Information Systems track of the ICIS 2022 (International Conference for Information Systems) for “Is Centralization Good IT Governance or Postcolonial: Insights from NGOs“

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

2020

Winner of MINTchallenge “MINTdigital – Mit Abstand am besten studieren” of the Stifterverband (3rd place, 2,000 EUR award)

2014

Best Paper nomination at HICSS-47 for “Which Boundary Objects are Applicable to Service Innovation? A Dynamic Capability Perspective“

2011

Nominated for “The most compelling, critical research reflection” at IFIP E-Government Conference 2011 for “Market, Network, Hierarchy: Emerging Mechanisms of Governance in Business Process Management“

2010

Nominated for “The most compelling, critical research reflection” at IFIP E-Government Conference 2010 for “From Bureaucratic and Quasi‐Market Environments: On the Co‐Evolution of Public Sector Business Process Management“

Research Rankings:

According to the Wirtschaftswoche (16th December, 2022), Ralf Plattfaut is one of the Top 50 german-speaking business administration researchers below 40 years.

Publications:

• Zubler, Marie-E.; Koch, Julian; Plattfaut, Ralf: User-driven technology in NGOs - A computationally intensive theory approach. In: International Journal of Information Management Data Insights, Vol 5 (2025). doi:10.1016/j.jjimei.2024.100307CitationDetails
• Godefroid, Marie-E.; Borghoff, Vincent; Plattfaut, Ralf; Niehaves, Björn: Teleworking antecedents: an exploration into availability bias as an impediment. In: Information Systems and e-Business Management (2024). doi:10.1007/s10257-023-00652-0PDFCitationDetails
• Zubler, Marie-E.; Plattfaut, Ralf; Niehaves, Björn: Decolonizing IT governance in international non-governmental organisations: An Ubuntu approach. In: Information Systems Journal (2024). doi:10.1111/isj.12541CitationDetails
• Godefroid, Marie-E.; Borghoff, Vincent; Plattfaut, Ralf; Niehaves, Björn: Structural power imbalances in global organisations: analysing IT governance from a postcolonial perspective. In: European Journal of Information Systems (2024), p. 1-22. doi:10.1080/0960085X.2024.2325358CitationDetails
• Weber, Sebastian; Wyszynski, Marc; Godefroid, Marie; Plattfaut, Ralf; Niehaves, Bjoern: How do medical professionals make sense (or not) of AI? A social-media-based computational grounded theory study and an online survey. In: Computational and Structural Biotechnology Journal, Vol 24 (2024), p. 146-159. doi:10.1016/j.csbj.2024.02.009CitationDetails
• Haase, Jennifer; Kremser, Waldemar; Leopold, Henrik; Mendling, Jan; Onnasch, Linda; Plattfaut, Ralf: Interdisciplinary Directions for Researching the Effects of Robotic Process Automation and Large Language Models on Business Processes. In: Communications of the Association for Information Systems, Vol 54 (2024). Full textCitationDetails
• Francois, Peter A.; Plattfaut, Ralf: Designing the Organizational Reuse Environment - Enabling Citizen Developers to Reuse Process Automation Artifacts. In: Di Ciccio, Claudio; Fdhila, Walid; Agostinelli, Simone; Amyot, Daniel; Leopold, Henrik; Krcal, Michal; Malinova Mandelburger, Monika; Polancic, Gregor; Tomicic-Pupek, Katarina; Gdowska, Katarzyna; Grisold, Thomas; Beerepoot, Iris; Gabryelczyk, Renata; Plattfaut, Ralf (Ed.): Business Process Management: Blockchain, Robotic Process Automation, Central and Eastern European, Educators and Industry Forum. Springer Nature Switzerland, Cham 2024, p. 138-153. doi:10.1007/978-3-031-70445-1_9CitationDetails
• Baer, Manfred; Plattfaut, Ralf: Human Friendly Automation: A Literature Review on the Role of the Human Factor in AI-Driven Business Process Automation. In: Marrella, Andrea; Resinas, Manuel; Jans, Mieke; Rosemann, Michael (Ed.): Business Process Management Forum. Springer Nature Switzerland, Cham 2024, p. 287-301. doi:10.1007/978-3-031-70418-5_17CitationDetails
• Godefroid, Marie; Gan, Yun; Hüls, Gerrit; Plattfaut, Ralf; Niehaves, Björn: Addressing status quo bias to turn a failing decision system introduction around: the case of DB Schenker. In: Journal of Decision Systems (2024), p. 1-30. doi:10.1080/12460125.2024.2410515CitationDetails
• Kampmann, Marlon; François, Peter Alois; Plattfaut, Ralf; Coners, André: Building BPM Capabilities to Foster Process Automation Initiatives Through Inter-Organizational Training. In: Projektmanagement und Vorgehensmodelle 2024 - Neues Arbeiten in Projekten – Teamarbeit neu interpretiert. Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V., 2024. CitationDetails
• Koch, Julian; Trampler, Michael; Coners, André; Plattfaut, Ralf: Ein Scoring-Modell zur Bewertung und Priorisierung potenziell zu automatisierender Geschäftsprozesse. In: D'Onofrio, Sara; Meinhardt, Stefan (Ed.): Robotik in der Wirtschaftsinformatik. Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden, Wiesbaden 2023, p. 85-106. doi:10.1007/978-3-658-39621-3_5CitationDetails
• Distel, Bettina; Plattfaut, Ralf; Kregel, Ingo: How business process management culture supports digital innovation: a quantitative assessment. In: Business Process Management Journal, Vol 29 (2023), p. 1352-1385. doi:10.1108/BPMJ-12-2022-0637CitationDetails
• Plattfaut, Ralf; Borghoff, Vincent: How to Successfully Navigate Crisis-Driven Digital Transformations. In: Management Information Systems Quarterly Executive, Vol 22 (2023), p. 191-208. doi:10.17705/2msqe.00081CitationAbstractDetails

  The turmoil of the COVID-19 pandemic caused organizations to transform their operations on a massive scale, with many responding by increasing the use of digi- tal technologies and digitally transforming themselves. However, these crisis-driven digital transformations happened under new and unknown conditions. In this article, we identify crisis-related challenges to established digital transformation "logics" and describe how small and medium-sized organizations in Germany (the "German Mittel-stand") responded to these challenges. Based on their experiences, we provide recommendations for successfully navigating crisis-driven digital transformations.

• Godefroid, Marie-E.; Plattfaut, Ralf; Niehaves, Björn: Increasing RPA Adoption: An Experiment on Countermeasures for Status Quo Bias. In: Di Francescomarino, Chiara; Burattin, Andrea; Janiesch, Christian; Sadiq, Shazia (Ed.): Business Process Management. Springer Nature Switzerland, Cham 2023, p. 323-340. doi:10.1007/978-3-031-41620-0_19CitationDetails
• François, Peter A.; Kampmann, Marlon; Plattfaut, Ralf; Coners, André: Systematically embedding automation reuse in business process management projects. In: Projektmanagement und Vorgehensmodelle 2023 - Nachhaltige IT-Projekte. Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V, 2023. CitationDetails
• Weber, Sebastian; Godefroid, Marie; Knop, Michael; Plattfaut, Ralf; Niehaves, Bjoern: How do medical professionals make sense (or not) of artificial intelligence? A social-media-based computational grounded theory study (Preprint), 2022. doi:10.2196/preprints.44090) CitationDetails
• Godefroid, Marie; Plattfaut, Ralf: The Power of Positivity: Framing IS adoption messages just right. In: Proceedings of the 43rd International Conference on Information Systems. 2022. Full textCitationDetails
• Godefroid, Marie-E.; Plattfaut, Ralf; Niehaves, Björn: How to measure the status quo bias? A review of current literature. In: Management Review Quarterly (2022). doi:10.1007/s11301-022-00283-8CitationDetails
• Müller, Kilian; Koelmann, Holger; Niemann, Marco; Plattfaut, Ralf; Becker, Jörg: Exploring Audience’s Attitudes Towards Machine Learning-based Automation in Comment Moderation. In: 17. Internationale Tagung Wirtschaftsinformatik. 2022. CitationDetails
• Plattfaut, Ralf: On the Importance of Project Management Capabilities for Sustainable Business Process Management. In: Sustainability, Vol 14 (2022), p. 7612. doi:10.3390/su14137612CitationDetails
• Plattfaut, Ralf; Borghoff, Vincent: Robotic Process Automation – A Literature-Based Research Agenda. In: Journal of Information Systems (2022). doi:10.2308/ISYS-2020-033CitationDetails
• Plattfaut, Ralf; Borghoff, Vincent; Godefroid, Marie; Koch, Julian; Trampler, Michael; Coners, André: The Critical Success Factors for Robotic Process Automation. In: Computers in Industry, Vol 138 (2022), p. 103646. doi:10.1016/j.compind.2022.103646CitationDetails
• Vollenberg, Carolin; Hoffmann, Felix; Coners, André; Plattfaut, Ralf: Omni-Kanal-Transformation im Krankenhaus – eine Fallstudie. In: HMD Praxis der Wirtschaftsinformatik, Vol 59 (2022), p. 1478-1493. doi:10.1365/s40702-022-00915-3CitationDetails
• Ahuja, Vinod Kumar; Kazantsev, Nikolai; Plattfaut, Ralf: Open Innovation via Open Source: Collaboration of Companies to Infuse Automobiles with Digital Technologies. In: Proceedings of the Americas Conference on Information Systems 2022. 2022. Full textCitationDetails
• Borghoff, Vincent; Plattfaut, Ralf: Steering the Robots: An Investigation of IT Governance Models for Lightweight IT and Robotic Process Automation. In: Marrella, Andrea; Matulevičius, Raimundas; Gabryelczyk, Renata; Axmann, Bernhard; Bosilj Vukšić, Vesna; Gaaloul, Walid; Indihar Štemberger, Mojca; Kő, Andrea; Lu, Qinghua (Ed.): Business Process Management: Blockchain, Robotic Process Automation, and Central and Eastern Europe Forum. Springer International Publishing, Cham 2022, p. 170-184. doi:10.1007/978-3-031-16168-111CitationDetails
• 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 (accepted for publication), Vol 34 (2022), p. 62-69. CitationDetails
• Distel, Bettina; Koelmann, Holger; Plattfaut, Ralf; Becker, Jörg: Watch who you trust! A structured literature review to build a typology of e-government risks. In: Information Systems and e-Business Management, Vol 20 (2022), p. 789-818. doi:10.1007/s10257-022-00573-4CitationDetails
• François, Peter A.; Borghoff, Vincent; Plattfaut, Ralf; Janiesch, Christian: Why Companies Use RPA: A Critical Reflection of Goals. In: Di Ciccio, Claudio; Dijkman, Remco; Del Río Ortega, Adela; Rinderle-Ma, Stefanie (Ed.): Business Process Management. Springer International Publishing, Cham 2022, p. 399-417. doi:10.1007/978-3-031-16103-226CitationDetails
• Godefroid, Marie; Borghoff, Vincent; Plattfaut, Ralf; Niehaves, Bjoern: Is Centralization Good IT Governance or Postcolonial: Insights from NGOs. In: Proceedings of the 43rd International Conference on Information Systems. 2022. Full textCitationDetails
• 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.2022.753CitationDetails
• Plattfaut, Ralf: Robotic Process Automation – Eine Herausforderung für IT-Governance. In: Feldmann, Carsten (Ed.): Praxishandbuch Robotic Process Automation (RPA). Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden, Wiesbaden 2022, p. 401-410. doi:10.1007/978-3-658-38379-422CitationDetails
• Plattfaut, Ralf; Borghoff, Vincent: Capabilities for Digital Process Innovation: Results of an Ongoing Action Research Study. In: Marrella, Andrea; Weber, Barbara (Ed.): Business Process Management Workshops. Springer International Publishing, Cham 2022, p. 232-242. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-94343-118CitationDetails
• Röglinger, Maximilian; Plattfaut, Ralf; Borghoff, Vincent; Kerpedzhiev, Georgi; Becker, Jörg; Beverungen, Daniel; Vom Brocke, Jan; Looy, Amy; Del Rio Ortega, Adela; Rinderle-Ma, Stefanie; Rosemann, Michael; Santoro, Flavia Maria; Trkman, Peter: Exogenous Shocks and Business Process Management: A Scholars’ Perspective on Challenges and Opportunities. In: Business & Information Systems Engineering (2022). doi:10.1007/s12599-021-00740-wCitationDetails
• Borghoff, Vincent; Plattfaut, Ralf: Challenges in IT governance in sports organizations: an actor-network perspective. In: Proceedings of the IADIS International Conference on e-Society. 2021. CitationDetails
• Godefroid, Marie; Borghoff, Vincent; Plattfaut, Ralf: Lightweight IT-Governance for NGOs: An Unresolved Challenge. In: Proceedings of the IADIS International Conference on e-Society. 2021. CitationDetails
• Godefroid, Marie; Zeuge, Anna; Oschinsky, F.; Plattfaut, Ralf; Niehaves, Björn: Cognitive Biases in IS Research: A Framework Based on a Systematic Literature Review. In: Proceedings of the 25th Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems. 2021. CitationDetails
• Käss, Sebastian; Godefroid, Marie; Borghoff, Vincent; Strahringer, Susanne; Westner, Markus; Plattfaut, Ralf: Towards a taxonomy of concepts describing IT outside the IT department. In: Proceedings of the Australasian Conference on Information Systems 2021. 2021. CitationDetails
• Kregel, Ingo; Koch, Julian F.; Plattfaut, Ralf: Beyond the Hype: Robotic Process Automation’s Public Perception Over Time. In: Journal of Organizational Computing and Electronic Commerce, Vol 31 (2021), p. 130-150. doi:10.1080/10919392.2021.1911586CitationDetails
• Plattfaut, Ralf; Borghoff, Vincent: Digitalization Mindset and Capabilities: Preliminary Results of an Action Research Study. In: 16. Internationale Tagung Wirtschaftsinformatik. 2021. CitationDetails
• Plattfaut, Ralf; Koch, Julian: Preserving the legacy – Why do professional soccer clubs (not) adopt innovative process technologies? A grounded theory study. In: Journal of Business Research, Vol 136 (2021), p. 237-250. doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2021.07.024CitationDetails
• Borghoff, Vincent; Plattfaut, Ralf: BPM Capability Configuration in Times of Crises: How to Adapt Processes when the Virus strikes?. In: 16. Internationale Tagung Wirtschaftsinformatik. 2021. Full textCitationDetails
• Godefroid, Marie; Plattfaut, Ralf; Niehaves, Björn: IT Outside of the IT Department: Reviewing Lightweight IT in Times of Shadow IT and IT Consumerization. In: 16. Internationale Tagung Wirtschaftsinformatik. 2021. Full textCitationDetails
• Koch, Julian; Plattfaut, Ralf; Kregel, Ingo: Looking for Talent in Times of Crisis – The Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Public Sector Job Openings. In: International Journal of Information Management Data Insights, Vol 1 (2021), p. 100014. doi:10.1016/j.jjimei.2021.100014CitationDetails
• Plattfaut, Ralf; Stein, Armin; Bergener, Katrin: Hochschulübergreifende Digitale Lehr-/Lernkonzepte zum Geschäftsprozessmanagement – Herausforderungen und Lessons Learned. In: HMD Praxis der Wirtschaftsinformatik (2021), p. 1456-1468. doi:10.1365/s40702-021-00802-3CitationDetails
• 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, Vol 58 (2021), p. 1244-1263. doi:10.1365/s40702-021-00764-6CitationDetails
• 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. Full textCitationDetails
• Plattfaut, Ralf; Koch, Julian F.; Trampler, Michael; Coners, André: PEPA: Entwicklung eines Scoring-Modells zur Priorisierung von Prozessen für eine Automatisierung. In: HMD Praxis der Wirtschaftsinformatik, Vol 57 (2020), p. 1111-1129. doi:10.1365/s40702-020-00670-3CitationDetails
• Friesdorf, Mathis; Gilbert, Greg; Goryunov, Yuri; Niedermann, Florian; Plattfaut, Ralf: Automation at scale: The benefits for payers, 2019. Full textCitationDetails
• Plattfaut, Ralf: Robotic Process Automation - Process Optimization on Steroids?. In: Krcmar, Helmut; Fedorowicz, Jane; Boh, Wai Fong; Leimeister, Jan Marco; Wattal, Sunil (Ed.): Proceedings of the 40th International Conference on Information Systems, ICIS 2019, Munich, Germany, December 15-18, 2019. Association for Information Systems, 2019. Full textCitationDetails
• Thapa, Basanta E. P.; Niehaves, Björn; Seidel, Claudius E.; Plattfaut, Ralf: Citizen involvement in public sector innovation: Government and citizen perspectives. In: Information Polity, Vol 20 (2015), p. 3-17. doi:10.3233/IP-150351CitationDetails
• Becker, Jörg; Niehaves, Björn; Pöppelbuss, Jens; Ortbach, Kevin; Plattfaut, Ralf; Voigt, Matthias; Malsbender, Andrea: Service Design - Mit der Quadromo-Methode von der Idee zum Konzept. Springer Gabler, 2015. (ISBN 978-3-662-46580-6) doi:10.1007/978-3-662-46581-3CitationAbstractDetails

  Dieses Buch führt in den Bereich der Dienstleistungsinnovation ein und stellt mit der Quadromo-Methode einen praxistauglichen Ansatz für das Service Design vor. Zahlreiche Anwendungsbeispiele aus der betrieblichen Praxis zeigen, wie sich Prozessgestaltung und Geschäftsmodellinnovation ergänzen und verbinden lassen. Checklisten und Umsetzungstipps unterstützen die erfolgreiche Realisierung von Dienstleistungsinnovationen mit der Quadromo-Methode im Unternehmen.

• Plattfaut, Ralf; Niehaves, Bjoern; Voigt, Matthias; Malsbender, Andrea; Ortbach, Kevin; Poeppelbuss, Jens: Service Innovation Performance and Information Technology: An Empirical Analysis from the Dynamic Capability Perspective. In: International Journal of Innovation Management, Vol 19 (2015). doi:10.1142/S1363919615500383CitationDetails
• Vom Brocke, Jan; Simons, Alexander; Riemer, Kai; Niehaves, Björn; Plattfaut, Ralf; Cleven, Anne: Standing on the Shoulders of Giants: Challenges and Recommendations of Literature Search in Information Systems Research. In: Communications of the Association for Information Systems, Vol 37 (2015). doi:10.17705/1CAIS.03709CitationDetails
• Poeppelbuss, Jens; Plattfaut, Ralf; Niehaves, Bjoern: How Do We Progress? An Exploration of Alternate Explanations for BPM Capability Development. In: Communications of the Association for Information Systems, Vol 36 (2015). doi:10.17705/1CAIS.03601Full textCitationAbstractDetails

  Business process management (BPM) is a topic that has received immense attention in information systems research and practice. While the existing literature comprehensively covers BPM methods, techniques, and tools, the development of BPM capability in organizations remains under-researched. Existing studies mainly present maturity models with generic sequences of distinct stages that provide a rather simplistic perspective on BPM capability progress. Taking a process theory view and drawing from organizational change literature, we elaborate on alternate templates for explaining BPM capability development. By revisiting two case studies on BPM capability development, we analyze the explanatory power of four basic theories of capability development and thus advance existing approaches to explain BPM capability progress. Our analysis shows the general applicability of these theories and points to particular advantages, disadvantages, and application conditions. Using the four basic theories as alternate templates, we also offer a much more-detailed explanation of the mechanisms behind the episodes of BPM capability progress that we observed in the two case studies. In particular, the different theoretical templates allow one to better understand the influence of internal and external contexts on BPM capability progress.

• Voigt, Matthias; Plattfaut, Ralf; Niehaves, Björn: Specialisation is king: creativity support systems for service concept development. In: International Journal of Services Technology and Management, Vol 20 (2014), p. 315. doi:10.1504/IJSTM.2014.068861CitationDetails
• Malsbender, Andrea; Plattfaut, Ralf; Niehaves, Bjoern; Becker, Joerg: Which Boundary Objects are Applicable to Service Innovation? A Dynamic Capability Perspective. In: Proceedings of the 47th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-47). 2014. doi:10.1109/HICSS.2014.31CitationAbstractDetails

  Service Innovation has become a focal point of attention for managers. Hence, organizations need to implement a convenient innovation strategy to remain competitive in constantly changing market environments. To identify, design and implement possible service innovation, organizations already successfully cooperate with external partners, suppliers, customers or internally through different functional departments. In so doing, organizational boundaries occur with respect to unequally distributed knowledge. This disparity needs to be overcome by spanning different groups through technology. In this article, we analyze what kind of IT artifact, so called boundary object, can be used within a service innovation. To this end, we conduct an empirical investigation in 500 German SMEs with the aim of identifying suitable boundary objects for each stage of a service innovation process. Drawing from the dynamic capability and boundary spanning theory we identify four boundary object types and reveal an insufficient utilization of them.

• Niehaves, Björn; Plattfaut, Ralf: Internet adoption by the elderly: employing IS technology acceptance theories for understanding the age-related digital divide. In: European Journal of Information Systems, Vol 23 (2014), p. 708-726. doi:10.1057/ejis.2013.19CitationDetails
• Niehaves, Björn; Pöppelbuß, Jens; Plattfaut, Ralf; Becker, Jörg: BPM Capability Development - A Matter of Contingencies. In: Business Process Management Journal, Vol 20 (2014), p. 90-106. doi:10.1108/BPMJ-07-2012-0068CitationAbstractDetails

  Purpose - Business process management (BPM) is a key concept in information systems (IS) research that helps to connect business strategy with the use of technology in an organization. Contemporary BPM research is no longer only about methods, procedures, or tools for managing or modeling processes but about assessing and developing BPM capability in organizations. For this purpose, a vast collection of maturity models has been designed by practitioners and scholars alike. Such models are used to assess the status quo and benchmark it against other organizations, and, most important, to guide the development of BPM capability. With this study, the paper challenges the maturity model perspective of such development models. Design/methodology/approach - In this study, methods of qualitative IS research are employed to address the research objectives. Findings - The paper shows that maturity model-based guidance would be inadequate. Instead, other concept-external factors resulting from organizational and environmental characteristics appear to be important indicators. The theory discussion introduces alternative takes on BPM capability development, lays out implications for BPM practice, and presents potentially fruitful paths for future research in the area of BPM capability development. Originality/value - This paper challenges the current perspectives and contributes a new direction for conceptualizing BPM capability development.

• Plattfaut, Ralf: Process-oriented dynamic capabilities: Framework development, empirical applications, and methodological support: Print zugl.: Münster (Westfalen), Univ., Diss., 2013. Springer International Publishing, Cham and s.l. 2014. (ISBN 9783319032504) doi:10.1007/978-3-319-03251-1Full textCitationAbstractDetails

  This book introduces a process-oriented dynamic capability framework to study both, service innovation and Business Process Management (BPM). Results from applications in several case studies and surveys are reported. They reflect, e.g., capability development and maturity models. Based on these findings, a method to support service innovation is introduced. This method can help organizations in developing new service business models in a more effective and efficient way. In today’s networked service society, service innovation becomes increasingly important. Reasons for this development can be found in the transformation of economies and in the growing importance of product-service systems. The concept of service innovation is related to Business Process Management (BPM) and shares several important traits. They both are process-oriented dynamic capabilities to adapt (service) processes to changing environments

• Öksüz, Ayten; Vages Peter, Henning; Plattfaut, Ralf; Saat, Jan: A Trust-Based Analysis of Cloud Computing in the Banking Industry. In: Banking and Information Technology, Vol 14 (2013), p. 21-35. CitationDetails
• Becker, Jörg; Malsbender, Andrea; Ortbach, Kevin; Plattfaut, Ralf; Voigt, Matthias; Höhenberger, Steffen; Niehaves, Björn: Business Modeling - Geschäftsmodelle prozessorientiert und kollaborativ entwickeln. In: Zeitschrift Führung + Organisation, Vol 82 (2013), p. 137-145. Full textCitationAbstractDetails

  Bei der Erstellung von Geschäftsmodellen ist es wichtig, dass die gesammelten Informationen in allen Phasen der Entwicklung zur Verfügung stehen. Das prozessorientierte Business Model Framework OctoProz, das an der Westfälischen Wilhelms-Universität Münster entwickelt wurde, gewährleistet dies und erlaubt es zudem, das Geschäftsmodell gemeinsam mit anderen Stakeholdern zu erarbeiten. Das Framework wurde für eine erleichterte Anwendung als prototypische Softwarelösung umgesetzt.

• Becker, Jörg; Ortbach, Kevin; Plattfaut, Ralf; Niehaves, Björn: Reach and Range of Business Process Management - Findings in the Telecommunication and Chemical Industry. In: 46th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. 2013, p. 3900-3909. doi:10.1109/HICSS.2013.459CitationAbstractDetails

  Business Process Management (BPM) has become an established management practice. Current literature in this field identifies maintaining a process-aware IT landscape and managing boundary-crossing relations as important functions in BPM. Regarding the former, we understand BPM range as the level of process-awareness in the IT landscape. As for the latter, we view BPM reach as the potential utilization of boundary-crossing relations. Based on these two dimensions, we propose a framework for exploring development paths in BPM implementations. This framework is then exemplarily applied in two case studies in the telephone and chemical industries. We are able to identify a development towards a higher level of BPM range in both industries while only the telecommunication company is looking to increase its BPM reach. Based on our empirical findings, we derive generalizable propositions for BPM development in both dimensions for future theory building efforts.

• Malsbender, Andrea; Ortbach, Kevin; Plattfaut, Ralf; Voigt, Matthias; Niehaves, Björn: Process-Oriented Business Modeling - An Application in the Printing Industry. In: International IFIP Working Conference on Enterprise Interoperability. 2013. doi:10.1002/9781118846995.ch5CitationAbstractDetails

  This chapter introduces the process‐oriented business model framework (Octoproz) and its application in an innovation workshop in a real life scenario of a printing industry case company. It reports on the merits and drawbacks of Octoproz for creating business models. The chapter also introduces related work on business modeling and briefly presents the case setting and the methodology. The application of process‐oriented led to well‐structured and mainly comparable business models. The conducted case study at the printing industry led to the manifestation of prior theoretical assumptions and serves as evaluation of the developed Octoproz. The presented Octoproz has a high benefit for practice as business ideas can be structured in a meaningful and comprehensive way. The chapter concludes that the process‐oriented framework is detailed enough to take decisions on profitability and feasibility of a business idea.

• Niehaves, Björn; Gorbacheva, Elena; Plattfaut, Ralf: The Digital Divide Vs. The E-Government Divide: Do Socio-Demographic Variables (Still) Impact E-Government Use Among Onliners. In: Gil-Garcia, J. Ramón (Ed.): E-Government Success Factors and Measures: Theories, Concepts, and Methodologies. IGI Global, 2013, p. 52-65. doi:10.4018/978-1-4666-4058-0CitationAbstractDetails

  E-government is beneficial for both citizens and public administrations. However, there are great differences in citizens’ e-government usage and, thus, there exists a gap between adopters and non-adopters of e-government services. Most related studies explore e-government acceptance on the basis of the entire population, while investigation of onliners rarely takes place. However, being online is a necessary pre-requisite for consuming Internet-based e-government services. Against the background that the number of Internet users is increasing steadily, the authors identify the need to differentiate general Internet adoption (digital divide) effects and e-government-specific divide effects. In the study, they develop a research framework, where the cumulative effect of e-government adoption (among all people) is split into (1) the digital divide effect and (2) the e-government divide effect (among Internet users). The authors derive three corresponding research models and examine the influence of socio-demographic factors: age, gender, income, and education. They test the research framework using comprehensive survey data (n = 1930). Analysis of the results justifies the separation of the e-government divide effect from the cumulative effect of e-government adoption, because the factors influencing e-government usage among the entire population and among onliners are proved to be different. Implications for theory and recommendations for practice are discussed. The findings reveal two important success factors for e-government: citizens’ Internet literacy and e-government services targeted at lesser-educated citizens.

• Niehaves, Björn; Plattfaut, Ralf; Becker, Jörg: Business Process Management Capabilities in Local Governments: A Multi-Method Study. In: Government Information Quarterly, Vol 30 (2013), p. 217-225. doi:10.1016/j.giq.2013.03.002CitationAbstractDetails

  Business Process Management (BPM) is a topic of greatest relevance to government innovation. While the concept originally stems from the private sector, public sector organizations have established BPM capabilities and are in the move of developing these further. Despite the importance of the phenomenon, literature does however not yet provide a comprehensive picture of BPM capabilities in governments. In this paper, we thus examine BPM capabilities on the local government level by means of an intertwined quantitative survey and (representative) qualitative in-depth case study. We identify a set of BPM challenges and reflect on the power of prevalent BPM capability assessment and development models, mostly maturity models, to provide good guidance. We suggest taking into account organizational positions in order to overcome the significant shortcoming of the ‘maturity’ concept, especially the focus on convergence towards an “ideal” state. Thus, we argue for developmental models following divergence theories. Implications for practice and potentially fruitful avenues for future research are discussed in the light of our findings.

• Plattfaut, Ralf; Hofmann, Sara; Kohlborn, Thomas; Beverungen, Daniel; Räckers, Michael; Niehaves, Björn; Becker, Jörg: Verwaltungsdienstleistungen für Personen mit eingeschränkter Mobilität: Von mobilen Bürgerdiensten zu E-Government?. In: eGovernment Review, Vol 11 (2013), p. 14-15. Full textCitationAbstractDetails

  Verwaltungsdienstleistungen sind über verschiedene Kanäle nutzbar. Der klassische Weg des Behördenbesuchs wurde in den letzten Jahren um mobile Bürgerdienste erweitert. Diese sollen insbesondere Senioren und Personen mit eingeschränkter Mobilität Zugang zu den Dienstleistungen erleichtern. Neben den mobilen Bürgerdiensten werden zunehmend digitale Kanäle eingeführt. Kommunikation ersetzt Mobilität und ermöglicht Zugang zu den Dienstleistungen per Computer oder Smartphone. In einer Studie in Deutschland und Australien wurde analysiert, inwiefern dies insbesondere für Personen mit eingeschränkter Mobilität gilt.

• Plattfaut, Ralf; Kohlborn, Thomas; Hofmann, Sara; Beverungen, Daniel; Niehaves, Björn; Räckers, Michael; Becker, Jörg: Unravelling (E-)Government Channel Selection: A Quantitative Analysis of Individual Customer Preferences in Germany and Australia. In: 46th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. 2013, p. 1983-1991. doi:10.1109/HICSS.2013.585CitationAbstractDetails

  The purpose of this study is to identify the impact of individual differences on service channel selection for e-government services. In a comparative survey of citizens in Germany and Australia (n=1205), we investigate the impact of age, gender, and mobility issues on the selection of personal or mobile communication as channels for service consumption. The results suggest that Australians are more likely to want to use new technology-oriented channels as internet or mobile applications while Germans tend to use classical channels as telephone or in person. Moreover, differences with respect to age, gender, and mobility exist. Implications for practice and issues for future research are discussed.

• Plattfaut, Ralf; Niehaves, Björn; Voigt, Matthias; Malsbender, Andrea; Ortbach, Kevin; Pöppelbuß, Jens: IT and Collaboration in Service Innovation: A Dynamic Capability Perspective. In: 21st European Conference for Information Systems. 2013. Full textCitationDetails
• Seidel, C. E.; Thapa, B. E.; Niehaves, Björn; Plattfaut, Ralf: Selective crowdsourcing for open process innovation in the public sector - are expert citizens really willing to participate?. In: Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance. 2013. doi:10.1145/2591888.2591899CitationAbstractDetails

  In light of current challenges that modern societies are facing (e.g. demographic change, financial budgetary constraints, and demand for individualized public services), public administrations need to find innovative ways to deliver public services more efficiently. One possible solution to the dilemma of shrinking resources and increasing demands is open innovation. Various papers have already established the idea of crowdsourcing as a means of open innovation in the public sector. In order to enrich theory and practice in the field of collaborative innovation processes, this research focuses on the willingness of citizens to participate in crowdsourcing for innovation. More specifically, we highlight the role of expert citizens in selective crowdsourcing for complex tasks in the public sector with the concrete example of process innovations. We examine different levels of willingness to participate in crowdsourcing by means of a quantitative analysis of a questionnaire survey with n=128 German citizens. Our analysis shows that citizens are indeed motivated to participate in selective crowdsourcing to generate solutions to complex problems in the public sector. Although mobilizing adequate experts for complex tasks may seem challenging, we find that expert citizens actually have a higher willingness to collaborate on complex as well as simple tasks than non-experts. Additionally, financial incentives remain a relevant instrument in the design of citizensourcing projects. Ultimately, the role of age as an influence to participate in crowdsourcing will be discussed.

• Voigt, Matthias; Fordey, Markus; Malsbender, Andrea; Ortbach, Kevin; Plattfaut, Ralf; Niehaves, Bjoern: Business modeling needs process-orientation - framework development and testing. In: Deng, Hepu; Standing, Craig (Ed.): Proceedings of the 24th Australasian Conference on Information Systems. Melbourne, Australia 2013, p. 1-11. Full textCitationDetails
• Voigt, Matthias; Ortbach, Kevin; Plattfaut, Ralf; Niehaves, Björn: Developing Creative Business Models – The OctoProz Tool. In: Eighth International Conference on Design Science Research in Information Systems and Technology (DESRIST). 2013, p. 456-462. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-38827-937CitationAbstractDetails

  Business models are of great importance for business innovation. They can be understood as conceptual models that describe how organizations create and deliver value. Their creation is increasingly supported by information technology artifacts, as information technology facilitates information sharing, allows for continuous modification, and supports complex calculations. In this paper, we introduce a new prototype to create process-oriented business models: the OctoProz tool. We build up on creativity support system literature, present the design of the artifact, and discuss its significance for both research and practice. We close with an outlook on the evaluation of OctoProz.

• Voigt, Matthias; Ortbach, Kevin; Plattfaut, Ralf; Niehaves, Björn: IT Support for Business Process Innovation – Architectural Choices and Design Challenges. In: 46th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. 2013, p. 3737-3746. doi:10.1109/HICSS.2013.371CitationAbstractDetails

  For many organizations, business process innovation (BPI) is a crucial factor to ensure competitiveness. BPI can be characterized as a dynamic capability, since it facilitates change in operational processes. Moreover, it involves creative activity, since new and purposeful business processes are created. In this context, choosing and implementing IT tools that are supportive to these two specifics of process innovation can be considered a key success factor for organizations. However, both characteristics lead to challenges concerning the design of a socio-technical system. Companies have to be aware of those challenges in order to make an informed decision on system design. In this paper, we derive and consolidate characteristics of the innovation process. We identify two major properties - 1) task heterogeneity and 2) collaborativeness - and derive key design challenges on both technical and organizational level that these properties pose for the development of either distributed or monolithic process innovation systems.

• Voigt, Matthias; Plattfaut, Ralf; Ortbach, Kevin; Malsbender, Andrea; Niehaves, Björn; Becker, Jörg: Evaluating Business Modeling Tools from a Creativity Support System Perspective – Results from a Focus Group in the Software Development Industry. In: Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems (PACIS). 2013, p. 1-13. Full textCitationAbstractDetails

  Business modeling tools provide IT support in the complex process of business modeling. Little research exists on the evaluation of business modeling tools. We interpret business modeling as a creative process and evaluate a specific business modeling tool (OctoProz) by assessing its potential for fostering creative performance. We draw on literature on the design of creativity support systems, that is, the components for collaborative idea development, and position our business modeling tool as a creativity support system. We conduct a focus group study in the software development industry, collecting qualitative data on creativity-specific tool properties of OctoProz: playfulness, comprehension, specialization, and collaboration. The results show that task-specificity of the tool was highly appreciated by the business modeling experts, while improvements are needed with regards to playful interaction with the business model and support of comprehension of the business model. Real-time collaboration in the modeling process over-satisfies the experts’ needs. Our findings contribute to the purposeful design of business modeling tools. Further, the results suggest that the components for collaborative idea development are valid, while aspects of GUI design and collaboration modes require further attention. We finally indicate limitations and future research directions.

• Frederick, Jörg; Feuring, Sebastian; Köffer, Sebastian; Katschewitz, Stefan; Plattfaut, Ralf; Malsbender, Andrea; Voigt, Matthias; Niehaves, Björn; Becker, Jörg: Studie: Einsatz von BPM Suiten zur kollaborativen Dienstleistungsinnovation: Resreport, 134. Becker, Jörg; Grob, Heinz Lothar; Hellingrath, Bernd; Klein, Stefan; Kuchen, Herbert; Müller-Funk, Ulrich; Vossen, Gottfried (Ed.), Institut für Wirtschaftsinformatik, WWU Münster, 2012. Full textCitationDetails
• Plattfaut, Ralf; Niehaves, Björn: Service Innovation Capabilities in IT-Consulting. In: 20th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS). 2012. CitationDetails
• Niehaves, Björn; Gorbacheva, Elena; Plattfaut, Ralf: Social Aspects in Technology Acceptance: Theory Integration and Development. In: 45th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-45). 2012, p. 3149-3158. doi:10.1109/HICSS.2012.532CitationAbstractDetails

  The success of many new technologies and technology-based applications relies heavily on considering social factors. Contemporary models for technology acceptance either neglect social aspects or cover them in a superficial way. In our study we develop a better understanding of social aspects in technology adoption. We analyze and combine items related to social influence from the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology and the Model of Adoption of Technology in Households and develop a new research model. While testing this model using quantitative data (n=501), one derived construct appears to be weak. Hence, we introduce new items, provide a second round of data collection (n=682), and develop an improved research model, which is validated by the new data. Here, all constructs work as intended. Our second model has a higher coefficient of determination than the first one. We show that Social Externalities is the most influential social factor towards technology acceptance and provide the corresponding items for future research.

• Niehaves, Björn; Plattfaut, Ralf; Becker, Jörg: Business Process Governance: A Comparative Study of Germany and Japan. In: Business Process Management Journal, Vol 18 (2012), p. 347-371. doi:10.1108/14637151211225234CitationDetails
• Ortbach, Kevin; Plattfaut, Ralf; Pöppelbuss, Jens; Niehaves, Björn: A Dynamic Capability-based Framework for Business Process Management: Theorizing and Empirical Application. In: 45th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-45). 2012. CitationAbstractDetails

  Both incremental and radical business process change are undoubtedly core tasks of Business Process Management (BPM) and, thus, organizational design. The competence to successfully pursue such BPM initiatives represents an important capability which is needed by organizations exposed to a dynamic business environment. While the term BPM is omnipresent, research still lacks both a clear understanding and a theoretical framework in order to explain what constitutes BPM capability. To address this research gap, we apply Dynamic Capability Theory as a helpful means to conceptualize BPM. We further build a detailed framework of sub-capabilities we identify to be relevant for BPM based on existing literature. Finally, we demonstrate the applicability of our novel framework in a single case study in the telecommunications industry. Results suggest that organizations need to sense needs and opportunities for process change, seize the change options, and transform the organization accordingly.

• Niehaves, Björn; Gorbacheva, Elena; Plattfaut, Ralf: The Digital Divide Vs. The E-Government Divide: Do Socio-Demographic Variables (Still) Impact E-Government Use Among Onliners?. In: 20th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS). 2012. CitationAbstractDetails

  E-Government brings mutual benefits to both citizens and public administrations. However, there exists a gap between adopters and non-adopters of e-Government services. Most studies in this field explore e-Government acceptance on the basis of the entire population, while investigation of onliners rarely takes place. Against the background that the number of internet users is increasing steadily, we identify the need to differentiate general internet adoption (digital divide) effects and e-Government-specific divide effects. In our study, we thus develop a research framework, where the cumulative effect of e-Government adoption (among all people) is split into a) the digital divide effect and b) the e-Government divide effect (among internet users). We derive three corresponding research models and examine the influence of socio-demographic factors: age, gender, income, and education. We test our research framework using comprehensive survey data (n = 1930). Analysis of our results justifies the separation of the e-Government divide effect from the cumulative effect of e-Government adoption, because the factors influencing e-Government usage among the entire population and among onliners are proved to be different. Implications for theory and recommendations for practice are discussed.

• Plattfaut, Ralf: Diskontinuierliche Erwerbsbiografien und alternde Belegschaften als Herausforderung für das Management von Prozessen in der Verwaltung. In: Verwaltung \\& Management, Vol 18 (2012), p. 218-222. doi:10.5771/0947-9856-2012-4-218CitationDetails
• Plattfaut, Ralf; Niehaves, Björn; Becker, Jörg: Capabilities for service innovation: A qualitative case study in the consulting industry. In: 16th Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems. 2012. Full textCitationAbstractDetails

  In today’s dynamic market environments, service organizations face the need to improve existing and create new services. While practice and research acknowledge the importance of this phenomenon, it is yet understudied with regard to understanding relevant resources for service innovation. Based on the resource-based view and dynamic capability theory, we develop a theoretical understanding of service innovation. In order to identify relevant resources, here: capabilities and assets, we conduct a qualitative case study at IT-CONSULT, a Germany-based IT consultancy. Results suggest that the current understanding of dynamic capabilities is unable to explain the occurrences at IT-CONSULT. Thus, we discuss the extension of the dynamic capability framework with a new class of capabilities – systemic capabilities – that function to mobilize operational capabilities and assets. Implications of this research for both theory and practice are discussed.

• Becker, Joerg; Niehaves, Björn; Malsbender, Andrea; Ortbach, Kevin; Plattfaut, Ralf; Pöppelbuß, Jens: Taking a BPM Lifecycle View on Service Productivity: Results from a Literature Analysis. In: XXI. International RESER Conference. 2011. CitationDetails
• Niehaves, Björn; Plattfaut, Ralf: Collaborative Business Process Management: Status Quo and Quo Vadis. In: Business Process Management Journal, Vol 17 (2011), p. 384-402. doi:10.1108/14637151111136342CitationDetails
• Niehaves, Björn; Plattfaut, Ralf: Demografischer Wandel: Forschungsprojekt untersucht E-Government in der alternden Gesellschaft. In: Kommune21, Vol 2011 (2011), p. 12-13. CitationDetails
• Niehaves, Björn; Plattfaut, Ralf; Gorbacheva, Elena: Social Aspects in Technology Acceptance: Theory Integration and Development. In: Proceedings of JAIS Theory Development Workshop (Pre-ICIS). 2011, p. 153. CitationDetails
• Niehaves, Björn; Plattfaut, Ralf: The MATH of Internet Adoption: Comparing Different Age-Groups. In: 10. Internationale Tagung Wirtschaftsinformatik (WI 2011). 2011. Full textCitationAbstractDetails

  Modern societies share two common trends: First, elderly people form a strongly growing group in the population (societal aging) and, second, the importance of information and communication technology is growing rapidly. However, the elderly are often excluded from benefiting from IT-enabled service delivery: An age-related digital divide exists. Current research lacks understanding what reasons prevent elderly to use the internet. Therefore, this paper examines the intention to use the internet in a private manner among the elderly. For higher explanatory power we also included two other age-groups (G1: 59). Here, we build a survey instrument based on the Model of Acceptance of Technology in Households (MATH) and test the

• Schrulle, Fabian; Plattfaut, Ralf: Towards a Design Theory for Social BPM Systems. In: 10. Internationale Tagung Wirtschaftsinformatik (WI 2011) - Student Track Poster Session. 2011. CitationDetails
• Niehaves, Björn; Plattfaut, Ralf; Sarker, Suprateek: Understanding Dynamic IS Capabilities for Effective Process Change: A Theoretical Framework and an Empirical Application. In: International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS 2011). 2011. Full textCitationAbstractDetails

  Process change remains a hot topic for both business and IT departments in organizations worldwide. In this research-in-progress paper, informed by the Dynamic Capability Theory of the firm, we develop a theoretical framework that contributes to the understanding of IT-enabled business process change, and elements of the dynamic capabilities that contribute to change success. Specifically, our framework differentiates between baseline and ad-hoc capabilities, and structures these capabilities in the three phases of sensing, seizing, and transformation. An application of our framework in a case setting suggests that baseline capabilities are activated and new ad-hoc capabilities built based on project specific features. Indeed, our framework when applied to two contrasting embedded cases within the same organization reveals the nature of dynamic capabilities that potentially affect IS and process change success. Limitations, plans to complete this research, and directions for future research are discussed.

• Gorbacheva, Elena; Niehaves, Björn; Plattfaut, Ralf; Becker, Jörg: Acceptance and Use of Internet Banking: A Digital Divide Perspective. In: 19th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS). 2011. CitationAbstractDetails

  Internet banking offers major advantages for both banks and their customers. However, not all people have equal access or skills to use such services. As banks are interested in migrating customers online, they need to reveal the conditions of internet banking services acceptance and use. The main objective of this study is to understand the factors influencing internet banking adoption taking into account insights from the digital divide theory. In order to explain internet banking usage we developed a research model drawing from the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) and Digital Divide research. Moreover, a qualitative pre-study has led to the creation of a new construct: perceived security. The model was tested against comprehensive survey data (n = 503). As a result, more than 90 percent of the variance of internet banking usage was explained by the elaborated model. Results demonstrate that the strongest factor influencing the intention to adopt internet banking services is the degree to which an individual believes that it is safe to use such services. Hence, this paper contributes to existing technology acceptance literature by introducing the construct of perceived security. Other major implications for theory and practice are discussed.

• Plattfaut, Ralf; Niehaves, Björn; Pöppelbuß, Jens; Becker, Jörg: Development of BPM Capabilities - Is Maturity the Right Path?. In: 19th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS). 2011. Full textCitationAbstractDetails

  Business Process Management (BPM) is an influential concept in information systems (IS) research and management practice. While a great number of studies dealt with developing methods, procedures, or tools for BPM, especially process modeling, today the question of how to assess and – from that point on – to develop BPM capabilities in a real-life organization has become key to BPM practice and is becoming a central element in BPM research as well. A plethora of BPM maturity models have been designed for the purpose of guiding the development of BPM capabilities in organizations. In this study, we take a critical perspective on maturity models for BPM capability development and present a case study example where maturity model-based guidance is rendered to be inadequate if not further considering organizational position and environment. Our theory discussion introduces alternative takes on BPM capability development, lays out implications for BPM practice, and presents potentially fruitful paths for future research and theory in the area of BPM capability development.

• Malsbender, Andrea; Pöppelbuss, Jens; Plattfaut, Ralf; Niehaves, Bjoern; Becker, Joerg: How to Increase Service Productivity: A BPM Perspective. In: 15th Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems (PACIS). 2011. Full textCitationAbstractDetails

  The service sector has experienced a remarkable growth in most advanced economies over the last decades. Services are processes that transfer inputs into outputs through interaction between customer and provider. The performance of service processes can be measured in terms of service productivity. Service productivity, expressing the relationship between service outcome and the resources required, is a key measure to service providers. In this literature review, we take a BPM perspective to examine which practices extant studies suggest to help service managers to increase productivity of service processes. We assign 15 recommendations which we are able to identify from the literature review to the phases design, configuration, enactment, and diagnosis according to the BPM lifecycle. Based on these recommendations, we outline three interconnected areas of future research from which the service industry could benefit. These are cross-boundary BPM, understanding IT support for service processes, and contributions of design science. This study takes a fresh look on service productivity as it offers a novel systemization and synthesis of the diverse recommendations present in the literature. The implications we discuss go beyond common beaten tracks as they bring forward the new opportunities of growing digital connectedness that also exist for traditional services as well as the formation of networks and increasing collaboration within the service sector.

• Pöppelbuss, Jens; Plattfaut, Ralf; Ortbach, Kevin; Malsbender, Andrea; Voigt, M.; Niehaves, Björn; Becker, Jörg: Service Innovation Capability: Proposing a New Framework. In: 3rd International Symposium on Services Science (ISSS 2011) in conjunction with the Federated Conference on Computer Science and Information Systems (FedCSIS 2011). 2011, p. 545-551. CitationDetails
• Niehaves, Björn; Plattfaut, Ralf: Market, Network, Hierarchy: Emerging Mechanisms of Governance in Business Process Management. In: 10th IFIP WG 8.5 International Conference on E-Government (EGOV 2011). 2011, p. 185-197. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-22878-016CitationAbstractDetails

  Both financial pressure and customer and service-quality orientation force governments to “innovate their processes.” With governmental processes affecting a large variety of stakeholders both inside and outside the government sector, involving these stakeholders in process innovation becomes an important means of increasing know-how, capacity, and ultimately ensure the legitimacy and acceptance of reform efforts. We contribute to the study of collaborative process innovation by applying a governance theory perspective, in order to understand the factors that impact on collaboration. Our quantitative study of 357 local governments reveals that, with an increasing maturity in process innovation, all types of collaboration (market, network, hierarchy) are increasing in importance. Moreover, we find that, under financial stress, governments tend to involve network partners (e.g. other local governments) in process innovation, while a lack of process management knowledge leads to market-oriented collaboration with consultants. We derive implications for management practice and discuss how the study enhances our understanding of process innovation and collaboration in the public sector.

• Niehaves, Björn; Plattfaut, Ralf; Budde, Max; Becker, Jörg: Business Process Governance: Theorizing and Empirical Application. In: 17th Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS 2011). 2011. Full textCitationAbstractDetails

  Studies by Gartner (2010) or McKinsey (2008) suggest univocally that improving business processes is the undisputednumber one priority for organizations world-wide. Hence, organizations need adequate capabilities for Business ProcessManagement (BPM). However, these capabilities do not necessarily need to be developed in the organization itself – aninclusion using other sourcing structures (e.g. cooperation/network or market instead of hierarchy) is possible as well. Thispaper builds upon an understanding of BPM as a dynamic capability and a well-known distinction of governance strategies(market, cooperation, hierarchy) to develop a business process governance framework. Using an extensive case study weinitially test this framework in a European PRODUCTION company. Therefore, we make the following contributions: 1)development of a BPM theory that integrates dynamic capability and governance theory, 2) a model for understandingsourcing strategies in BPM, and 3) empirically sound factors explaining sourcing strategies in BPM. Our results suggest thatorganizations facing a low dynamic market environment do not employ dedicated resources for business process change butrely on ad-hoc measures. Moreover, they gather these resources mostly internally (hierarchical governance). The paper endswith implications for both research and practice, limitations, and potential avenues for future research.

• Becker, Jörg; Niehaves, Björn; Plattfaut, Ralf: Stakeholder Involvement in Business Process Management Agenda-Setting and Implementation. In: 16th Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS). 2010. Full textCitationDetails
• Gorbacheva, Elena; Niehaves, Björn; Plattfaut, Ralf: Governmental Projects for the Aging Society: An Explorative Study in Russia. In: Fachtagung Verwaltungsinformatik und Fachtagung Rechtsinformatik (FTVI \\& FTRI) 2010. 2010, p. 89-91. CitationDetails
• Niehaves, Björn; Plattfaut, Ralf: Collaborative Business Process Management: Exploring Themes, Achievements, and Perspectives. In: 18th European Conference on Information Systems. 2010. Full textCitationAbstractDetails

  Under labels such as global value chains, global production networks, interconnected firms, or outsourcing cross-boundary business processes have gained significant attention in practice and research. However, only little research has yet systematically examined the implications of crossboundary business processes for Business Process Management (BPM). These cross-boundary business processes together with the drivers of collaboration and network management as well as governance form one of the key challenges for today’s BPM research. In this study we thus systematically review literature and seek to answer whether BPM research in Information Systems (IS) has yet embraced and explored the concept of collaboration. We find that collaborative BPM is a growing trend in IS research, but that there still exist significant research gaps. Therefore, we propose a research agenda that points at potentially fruitful directions for future research.

• Niehaves, Björn; Plattfaut, Ralf: T-Government for the Citizens: Digital Divide and Internet Technology Acceptance among the Elderly. In: tGov Workshop ’10 (tGov10). 2010. CitationDetails
• Niehaves, Björn; Plattfaut, Ralf: The Age-Divide in Private Internet Usage: A Quantitative Study of Technology Acceptance. In: 16th Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS). 2010. Full textCitationAbstractDetails

  In today’s information society internet usage and e-literacy become more and more important. However, inequalities in internet usage of different social groups become and stay observable. Here, especially elderly citizens, with an increasing share of population in western societies, are often included from benefits related to information technology and internet usage. One important aspect of local governments’ policy is to bridge this so-called digital divide. However, up to now a thorough understanding of potential factors influencing private internet usage is not provided by the literature. Hence, this paper aims at identifying important influencing factors in order to explain senior citizens’ private internet use. Thus, we develop a model based on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology and digital divide research which is tested against comprehensive survey data (n=192). The combined model is able to explain more than 70 percent of the variation of private internet use. Major implications for future research and e-Inclusion practice are discussed.

• Niehaves, Björn; Plattfaut, Ralf; Becker, Jörg: Transformation Networks – The Case of Business Process Management in Local Governments. In: tGov Workshop ’10 (tGov10). 2010, p. 275-288. CitationDetails
• Niehaves, Björn; Plattfaut, Ralf; Gorbacheva, Elena: Information Society and Aging - A Study on E-Inclusion Projects in Russian Municipalities. In: Piet Kommers, Piet; Isaías, Pedro (Ed.): Proceedings of the IADIS International Conference on e-Society. 2010. CitationDetails
• Niehaves, Björn; Plattfaut, Ralf: From Bureaucratic and Quasi‐Market Environments: On the Co‐Evolution of Public Sector Business Process Management. In: Wimmer, Maria A.; Chappelet, Jean-Loup; Janssen, Marijn; Scholl, Hans J. (Ed.): Electronic Government - 9th IFIP WG 8.5 International Conference, EGOV 2010, Lausanne, Switzerland, August 29 - September 2, 2010. Proceedings. 2010, p. 387-399. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-14799-933CitationAbstractDetails

  Business Process Management (BPM) can be viewed as a set of techniques to integrate, build, and reconfigure an organization’s business processes for the purpose achieving a fit with the market environment. While business processes are rather stable in low-dynamic markets, the frequency, quality, and importance of process change amplifies with an increase in environmental dynamics. We show that existing designs of public sector BPM might not be able to cope with the mounting frequency and quality of business process change. Our qualitative in-depth case study of a local government suggests that a major cause for such misfit lies in ineffective organizational learning. We contribute to the literature by applying the Dynamic Capability framework to public sector BPM in order to better understand shifts in market dynamics and their consequences for BPM effectiveness. Practitioners find a proposal for identifying, understanding, and reacting to a BPM-misfit and for developing effective BPM strategies.

• Niehaves, Björn; Plattfaut, Ralf; Gorbacheva, Elena; Vages Peter, Henning: Analysis of E-Inclusion Projects in Russia, Austria and Switzerland. In: Interactive Technology and Smart Education, Vol 7 (2010), p. 72-84. doi:10.1108/17415651011071019CitationDetails
• Niehaves, Björn; Plattfaut, Ralf; Vages Peter, Henning: Aging and the Information Society: A Comparative Study of Austria and Switzerland. In: 11th Annual Conference on Digital Government Research (Poster Session). 2010, p. 237-238. CitationDetails
• Niehaves, Björn; Plattfaut, Ralf: What is the Issue with Internet Acceptance among Elderly Citizens? Theory Development and Policy Recommendations for Inclusive E‐Government. In: Wimmer, Maria A.; Chappelet, Jean-Loup; Janssen, Marijn; Scholl, Hans J. (Ed.): Electronic Government - 9th IFIP WG 8.5 International Conference, EGOV 2010, Lausanne, Switzerland, August 29 - September 2, 2010. Proceedings. 2010, p. 275-288. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-14799-924CitationAbstractDetails

  Digital divide is still a big topic in information systems and e-government research. In the past, several tracks and workshops on this topic existed. As information technology and especially the internet become more and more important governments cannot ignore the fact that elderly citizens are excluded from the benefits related to internet usage. Although e-Inclusion programmes and initiatives changed over the years and, moreover, although the amount of e-Inclusion literature is constantly growing, there is still no thorough understanding of potential factors influencing private internet usage. Hence, in this study we identify important influencing factors based on the literature on technology acceptance and digital divide. We develop a model based on these factors and test it against comprehensive survey data (n=192). Our theoretical model is able to explain more than 70 percent of the variation in private internet usage. We derive policy recommendations based on the results and discuss implications for future research.

• Niehaves, Björn; Plattfaut, Ralf; Becker, Jörg: Does Your Business Process Management (Still) Fit the Market? – A Dynamic Capability Perspective on BPM Strategy Development. In: 16th Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS). 2010. Full textCitationAbstractDetails

  Business Process Management (BPM) can be viewed as a set of techniques to integrate, build, and reconfigure an organization‟s business processes for the purpose achieving a fit with the market environment. While business processes are rather stable in low-dynamic markets, the frequency, quality, and importance of business process change amplifies with an increase in environmental dynamics. Taking the public sector example, we recognize that market dynamics can change over time (market dynamic shift), here: increase. We show that existing designs of BPM might not be able to cope with the mounting frequency and quality of business process change (market-BPM-misfit). On the basis of a qualitative in-depth case study, we provide evidence that a major cause for such misfit lies in ineffective (second order) organizational learning. We contribute to the literature by applying the Resource-Based View and Dynamic Capability framework to the case of BPM in order to better understand shifts in market dynamics and their consequences for BPM effectiveness. Practitioners find a proposal for identifying, understanding, and reacting to a market-BPM-misfit and for developing market-oriented BPM strategy.

• Vom Brocke, Jan; Simons, Alexander; Niehaves, Björn; Riemer, Kai; Plattfaut, Ralf; Cleven, Anne: Reconstructing the Giant: On the Importance of Rigour in Documenting the Literature Search Process. In: 17th European Conference on Information Systems. 2009. Full textCitationAbstractDetails

  Science is a cumulative endeavour as new knowledge is often created in the process of interpreting and combining existing knowledge. This is why literature reviews have long played a decisive role in scholarship. The quality of literature reviews is particularly determined by the literature search process. As Sir Isaac Newton eminently put it: “If I can see further, it is because I am standing on the shoulders of giants.” Drawing on this metaphor, the goal of writing a literature review is to reconstruct the giant of accumulated knowledge in a specific domain. And in doing so, a literature search represents the fundamental first step that makes up the giant’s skeleton and largely determines its reconstruction in the subsequent literature analysis. In this paper, we argue that the process of searching the literature must be comprehensibly described. Only then can readers assess the exhaustiveness of the review and other scholars in the field can more confidently (re)use the results in their own research. We set out to explore the methodological rigour of literature review articles published in ten major information systems (IS) journals and show that many of these reviews do not thoroughly document the process of literature search. The results drawn from our analysis lead us to call for more rigour in documenting the literature search process and to present guidelines for crafting a literature review and search in the IS domain.

Reviewing and consulting activities:

• Forum Chair of the "RPA Forum" of the 21st International Conference on Business Process Management (BPM 2023)
• Program Committee Member of the track “Management” of the 21st International Conference on Business Process Management (BPM 2023)
• Associate Editor of the tracks “Smart Cities & Digital Government” and “Digital Industry and Retailing” of the Internationale Tagung Wirtschaftsinformatik (WI) 2023
• Editorial Board Member of the Journal “Information Systems and e-Business Management”
• Editorial Board Member of the Journal “Intelligent Systems in Accounting, Finance and Management”
• Program Committee Member of the track “Agile, IS Development, and Project Management” of the Australasian Conference on Information Systems 2022 (ACIS2022)
• Program Committee Member of the track “Management” of the 20th International Conference on Business Process Management (BPM 2022)
• Associate Editor of the tracks “E-Government (Digitale Verwaltung)”, “Digital Retail”, and “Business Process Management” of the Internationale Tagung Wirtschaftsinformatik (WI) 2022
• Program Committee Member of the track “Management” of the 19th International Conference on Business Process Management (BPM 2021)
• Program Committee Member of the “BPM Industry Forum” of the 19th International Conference on Business Process Management (BPM 2021)
• Associate Editor of the track “Digital Retail” of the Internationale Tagung Wirtschaftsinformatik (WI) 2021
• Program Committee Member of the track “Digital Sovereignty in the Era of Smart Cities” of the 22nd Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research (dg.o 2021)
• Associate Editor of the track “Digitized Acting in Digital Societies” of the European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS) 2020
• Program Committee Member of the track “Management” of the 18th International Conference on Business Process Management (BPM 2020)
• Program Committee Member of the track “Service Science and Information Systems” of the 16th Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems (PACIS) 2012