Engineering the Transformation of the Enterprise: A Design Science Research Perspective

The topics in this book cover a broad range of research interests: from business engineering and its application in corporate and business networking contexts to design science research as well as applied topics, where those research methods have been employed for modeling, data warehousing, information systems management, enterprise architecture management, management of large and complex projects, and enterprise transformation.

The book is a Festschrift for Robert Winter in order to appreciate his work and to honor him as a personality with a high reputation in the information systems community. To this end, many professional colleagues or long-time companions both from the Institute of Information Management at the University of St. Gallen as well as from the international research community dedicated articles on topics related to Robert’s research. They reflect his ambition to uncompromisingly conduct high-class research that fuels the research community and at the sametime contributes to improved industrial practice.

The book is organized in three major parts: Part I “Business Engineering and Beyond” focuses on the methodology strongly shaped by Robert in St. Gallen with a focus on research being applied in corporate contexts. Part II “Design Science Research” spans from reflections on the practice of design science research to perspectives on design science research methodologies and eventually up to considerations to teach design science research methodology. Part III “Applied Fields” combines various applications of design science and related research methodologies with practical problems and future research topics.

Stephan Aier is a Professor and senior lecturer at the School of Computer Science at the University of St. Gallen (HSG), Switzerland. He co-heads the Architectural Coordination Group (ACG) at the university’s Institute of Information Management (IWI-HSG) and serves as IWI's Executive Director. 

Peter Rohner is Affiliated Professor of Business and Information Systems Engineering at the University of St. Gallen and Vice Director of HSG's Institute of Information Management, where he leads the research group on Business Innovation Excellence.

Joachim Schelp is an enterprise architect and program manager with a Swiss health insurance company. Prior to this, he was Assistant Professor at the University of St. Gallen until 2010, when he moved to industry but remained active as a lecturer at HSG.