Trained in economics and business administration in Germany, I work at the interface between information systems, organization theory, and institutional economics. I received a doctorate in economics and business administration from the University of Wuppertal with a thesis on the economic analysis of standardization processes and earned a post-doctorate degree (“venia legendi”) at the University of Bremen with a thesis on external IT Management.
From September 1998 to August 2003, I worked as a Visiting Professor at Tsinghua University’s School of Economics and Management in Beijing, sponsored by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). Since September 2003, I work as a Professor of Information Systems at RWTH Aachen University in the School of Business and Economics where I head the Research Group Electronic Business.
My fields of interest cover inter-organizational information systems, enterprise systems implementation, and issues of information systems standardization. Since 2013, I am focussing my work on the long-term study of industry-wide information infrastructures in healthcare. In support of this study, I have co-founded several so-called Learning Communities which, at the local level, bring together participants in medication (management) processes such as patients, pharmacists, physicians, nurses, and relatives. Together with my research tearm, I am also developing simple apps to help participants in medication processes to update medication plans.