Research at the Institute of Information Systems focuses on Business Process Management and certain research areas within this field.

• Creativity and Innovation in IS: Creativity is the origin of innovation, that is, the successful implementation of creative ideas within an organization. It is thus an indispensable factor in propelling economic growth and societal well-being. Focusing on creativity allows organizations to innovate on a continuous basis and to sustain a source of competitive advantage that can hardly be replicated by competitors. It has been asserted that information technology (IT) has the ability to both enhance and undermine creativity and innovation. In real world scenarios, however, creativity and innovation unfold in a complex context, involving various interrelated individual, organizational, and technological factors. Against this background, this research stream particularly aims at understanding how IT can contribute to creating a socio-technical environment that is conducive to creativity and innovation.
  
  
• Culture and People in BPM: There is a growing awareness in research on BPM that BPM not only concerns technological aspects, but requires a holistic organizational perspective including personal and cultural aspects. Specifically, culture has been identified as a key driver of BPM initiatives and is increasingly referred to as a central factor of failure or success in BPM initiatives. Culture refers to the shared basic assumptions, values, or beliefs of a group. While research to date has mainly addressed cultural barriers towards successful BPM implementation or the need for cultural change due to BPM initiatives, little research can be found on which particular cultural elements support a BPM approach, i.e., reduce respective cultural barriers and give directions for cultural change. Therefore, we examine the constituent elements of a cultural setting supportive of achieving BPM objectives and explore their implementation through appropriate structures and actions.
  
  
• Green IS and Green BPM: The ever-increasing world-wide population, the demand for living standards, and the ongoing exploitation of natural resources have increased a wider awareness for the necessity of sustainability in living, organizing, performing, and managing work. Green IS is concerned with the design and implementation of information systems that contribute to organizational sustainability. Green BPM is concerned with the design and implementation of environmentally sustainable business processes, and thus closely related to Green IS. Specifically, this research stream aims at understanding how the transformative power of information systems can be leveraged in order to create more sustainable business processes
  
  
• Information and Content Management: Make the best possible use of information resources is a key capability of today’s organizations. This research stream specializes in the design and adoption of enterprise-wide information systems that support the creation, storage, retrieval, retention, and deletion of all types of organizational documents and contents (i.e., regardless of type, format, and source).

• IT Value: While BPM essentially seeks to generate value for customers, surprisingly little research has been conducted on value creation through BPM (i.e., on the concept of BPM value). This research stream seeks to develop methods to assess the value contribution by process innovation and process transformation. Apart from measures such as the Return on Process Transformation, further multi-dimensional measurement systems are developed and evaluated in practice.
  
  
• Research Methods in IS and BPM: In this research stream, we investigate the use of various research methods in IS and BPM. First, we have an interest in design research, which is concerned with the systematic creation of knowledge through and about building and evaluating innovative IT artifacts (e.g. constructs, models, methods, implementations). At this, we advocate a special emphasis on the theoretical grounding of design artifacts. Second, we investigate the role of qualitative methods, such as grounded theory, as they allow us to get a deep understanding of the socio-technical contexts we are interested in. Third, we are among a group of pioneering researchers applying neuroscience methods to IS research. Overcoming the limitations of conventional evaluation methods (e.g., interviews, surveys), these tools bear the potential to examine hidden factors, such as emotions, when designing and evaluating IT artifacts.