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University of St. Gallen

Prof. Dr. Robert Winter

Direktor
location_on
IWI-HSG
Büro 52-6146
apartment
Müller-Friedberg-Strasse 6/8
9000 St. Gallen
mail
phone
+41 71 224 2935
home
http://www.iwi.unisg.ch

Schwerpunkte

  • Gestaltungsorientierte IS-Forschung
  • Unternehmensarchitekturmanagement
  • Governance von Grossvorhaben (z.B. Digitale Transformation)
  • Governance von digitalen Plattformen und Geschäftsnetzwerken

    • Forschungsgebiete

  • Wirtschaftsinformatik

    • Publikationen

    get_appJannis Beese, Kazem Haki, Raphael Schilling, Martin Kraus, Stephan Aier, Robert Winter
    Wissenschaftlicher Artikel
    Enterprise architecture management (EAM) is commonly employed by large organizations to coordinate local information system development efforts in line with organization-wide strategic objectives while simultaneously avoiding redundancies and inconsistencies. Even though EAM tools and processes have become increasingly mature over the past decade, many organizations still struggle to generate impact from their EAM initiatives. To this end, we describe how enterprise architects at Commerzbank, a major international bank, employed a control mechanism portfolio perspective to more effectively anchor EAM within the organization. This approach allows to purposefully combine a wide range of different formal and informal EAM control mechanisms, thereby going beyond the formal, topdown driven mechanisms predominantly discussed in EAM literature. Furthermore, such EAM control mechanism portfolios provide an effective means to purposefully realign EAM in reaction to major strategic shifts. The application of this perspective is demonstrated by tracing the evolution of EAM at Commerzbank for more than a decade (2008 to 2018) through a turbulent and challenging competitive environment, resulting in several major strategic realignments that required corresponding adjustments in EAM. We believe that such consciously designed and diversified EAM control mechanism portfolios also provide a useful means for other large organizations to more effectively conduct EAM.

    Mehr
    Significant investments in information systems (IS) over the past decades have led to increasingly complex IS architectures in organizations, which are difficult to understand, operate, and maintain. We investigate this development and associated challenges through a conceptual model that distinguishes four constituent elements of IS architecture complexity by differentiating technological from organizational aspects and structural from dynamic aspects. Building on this conceptualization, we hypothesize relations between these four IS architecture complexity constructs and investigate their impact on architectural outcomes (i.e. efficiency, flexibility, transparency, and predictability). Using survey data from 249 IS managers, we test our model through a partial least squares (PLS) approach to structural equation modelling (SEM). We find that organizational complexity drives technological complexity and that structural complexity drives dynamic complexity. We also demonstrate that increasing IS architecture complexity has a significant negative impact on efficiency, flexibility, transparency, and predictability. Finally, we show that enterprise architecture management (EAM) helps to offset these negative effects by acting as a moderator in the relation between organizational and technological IS architecture complexity. Thus, organizations without adequate EAM are likely to face large increases in technological complexity due to increasing organizational complexity, whereas organizations with adequate EAM exhibit no such relation.

    Mehr
    Over recent decades, many platform-native start-ups and firms were founded and some are now among the world’s most valuable. This study, however, focuses on an incumbent firm transitioning from a long established product platform ecosystem to an innovation platform ecosystem in response to the platform-natives’ threats of disruption. We specifically investigate the dynamic capabilities needed by the incumbent firm in an enterprise software ecosystem in the transition phase. Our analysis builds on multi-perspective empirical data covering the viewpoints of all the actor types in the ecosystem, i.e., plat-form owner, platform partners, and end-user firms. The results imply the necessity of four dynamic capabilities: resource curation, ecosystem preservation, resource reconfiguration, and ecosystem diversification. With this study, we contribute to the emerging literature on the incumbent firms’ transition to a new ecosystem organising logic, and extend the study of dynamic capabilities specifically for the case of transitioning to innovation platform ecosystems.

    Mehr
    Anhaltende und massive Veränderungen im regulatorischen und technischen Kontext führen zu neuen bzw. veränderten Anforderungen an das Datenmanagement grosser Banken. Daraus resultieren Chancen und Herausforderungen im Datenmanagement, für die es hinsichtlich des Vorgehens und der Konsequenzen oft (noch) keine „Best Practices“ gibt. Hierzu haben wir entsprechende Erkenntnisse aus den Strategien und Umsetzungen der Partnerunternehmen der Data Management und Analytics Community (DMAC) der letzten zehn Jahre analysiert. Wir fassen den Status Quo des Datenmanagements zusammen und skizzieren wesentliche Entwicklungsrichtungen bzw. strategische Initiativen. Dabei fällt auf, dass europäische Grossbanken neben den generellen Entwicklungen in Richtung Cloud und agiler Strukturen / Prozesse auch ein zunehmend dezentrales Datenmanagement als geeigneten Weg zur datengetriebenen Organisation ansehen.

    Mehr
    The Design Science Research (DSR) paradigm is highly relevant to the Information Systems (IS) discipline because DSR aims to improve the state of practice and contribute design knowledge through the systematic construction of useful artefacts. Since study designs can be understood as useful artefacts, DSR can also contribute to improving conceptualizing a research project. This study developed a taxonomy with relevant dimensions and characteristics for DSR research. Such a taxonomy is useful for analyzing existing DSR study designs and successful DSR study design patterns. In addition, the taxonomy is valuable for identifying DSR study design principles (dependencies among characteristics) and subsequently for systematically designing DSR studies. We constructed the DSR study taxonomy through a classification process following the taxonomy development approach of Nickerson et al.

    Mehr
    get_appRobert Winter, Fabian Ringwald
    Wissenschaftlicher Artikel
    Obwohl sich die Rolle und Bedeutung der IT in den meisten Unternehmen stark verändert hat, folgt die Strukturierung von CIO-Bereichen (und ihrer Wertbeiträge) meist noch einem funktionalen Paradigma – unter Bezugnahme auf „was wird gemacht“ oder „wie wird es gemacht“, manchmal auch „für wen wird es gemacht“. Eine funktionale bzw. ergebnisorientierte Strukturierung findet sich mittelbar auch in Ansätzen, welche die Wertschöpfungskette in den Mittelpunkt stellen oder agile Gestaltungsprinzipien berücksichtigen.Wir diskutieren bestehende Ansätze und schlagen ein neues Strukturierungsmodell vor, das die Aktivitäten des CIO-Bereichs aus der Perspektive „welcher Wertbeitrag wird erreicht“ (bzw. welche strategische Wirkung wird angestrebt) unterscheidet. Das sich ergebende Wirkungsorientierte Portfolio wird dabei in den Dimensionen Wirkungsbreite, Wirkungszeitraum und Wirkungstiefe abgebildet. Ausgehend von der Demonstration bestimmter Aspekte dieses Perspektivenwechsels in Form von zwei Anwendungsfällen werden die Potenziale und Konsequenzen einer wirkungsorientierten Strukturierung des CIO-Bereichs z. B. für die Kommunikation des CIO-Wertbeitrags, die Koordination mit anderen Führungsfunktionen und die Organisation von „Business Technology“ diskutiert.

    Mehr
    get_appRobert Winter
    Konferenzbeitrag
    Although Enterprise Architecture Management (EAM) is a mature discipline and widely adopted in practice, surveys indicate effectivity barriers that, at least partially, appear to be a consequence of local decision makers’ non-compliance with enterprise-wide architectural guidelines. Several recent contributions aim at extending the portfolio of EAM interventions by applying informal control mechanisms. Although promising to extend EAM effectivity, informal interventions are apparently not much utilized in EAM practice. Based on the assumption that a comprehensive presentation of design knowledge for informal EAM interventions would support more widespread adoption, this paper integrates existing knowledge components to a coherent design approach. The proposal covers theoretical justification, conceptual foundations, a taxonomy of generic informal interventions, a catalogue of derived EAM intervention types, and a process to systematically instantiate and evaluate situation-specific informal interventions. Two Action Design Research projects in large companies are summarized as evaluative evidence for the potential that comprehensive in-formal intervention design has for improving EAM effectivity.

    Mehr
    With an increasing number of digitalization initiatives in the public sector, the providers of public sector shared service agencies that deliver and steer those initiatives are under pressure to become agile, i.e., to adopt agile activities, principles and an agile mindset. This study investigates challenges and corresponding mitigation measures of scaled agile transformations of such agencies. Based on data gathered through an Action Research based multiple case studies and drawing on context theory, it identifies obstacles related to the political, environmental, and internal context as well as transformation management itself. Among them are siloed actions and individual interests, IT legacy, the complexity of customer requirements, insufficient resources, no shared vision, low professionalization, and a missing holistic picture. Value stream thinking, architectural thinking, successful pilot projects, con-structive criticism and a culture of failure are suggested as countermeasures. The identified obstacles and measures fit well into and extend the findings from a systematic literature review. Our contribution is to contextualize and extend insights and recommendations related to the large-scale agile trans-formation of public sector agencies serving multiple public service organizations. Further research can quantitatively test the measures, develop maturity models for them, or identify obstacle-measure-patterns. Practitioners receive viable insights that should also contribute to a more successful transformation of the public sector in the benefit of society and economy.

    Mehr
    get_appNicola Staub, Kazem Haki, Stephan Aier, Robert Winter
    Wissenschaftlicher Artikel
    Digital platform owners repeatedly face paradoxical design decisions with regard to their platforms’ generativity and control, requiring them to facilitate co-innovation whilst simultaneously retaining control over third-party complementors. To address this challenge, platform owners deploy a variety of governance mechanisms. However, researchers and practitioners currently lack a coherent understanding of what major governance mechanisms platform owners rely on to simultaneously foster generativity and control. Conducting a structured literature review, we connect the fragmented academic discourse on governance mechanisms with each aspect of the generativity-control tension. Next to providing avenues for prospective digital platform research, we elaborate on the double-sidedness of governance mechanisms in fostering both generativity and control.

    Mehr

    Ausbildung

    1984 M.Sc. in business administration (Dipl.-Kfm.), Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany

    1986 M.Sc. in business education (Dipl.-Hdl.), Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany

    1989 Ph.D. in social sciences (Dr. rer. pol.), Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany

    1995 Venia legendi in business adminstration, Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany

    Berufserfahrung

    Robert Winter, University of St.Gallen (HSG), Switzerland is a full professor of business & information systems engineering and director of HSG’s Institute of Information Management. He is also founding director of HSG’s Executive MBA program in Business Engineering and has served for many years as president of the School of Management's Doctoral Program. Having been vice editor-in-chief of the Business & Information Systems Engineering journal and senior editor at the European Journal of Information Systems, he currently serves on the editorial board of MIS Quarterly Executive. His main research interests are design science research methodology and enterprise-level IS management topics such as architectural coordination, governance of digital platforms, or governance of enterprise transformation. One of his publications received the AIS Senior Scholars’ Global Best Paper award for 2017. 

    Awards

    Herbert A. Simon Best Research Paper Award, International Conference on Design Science Research in Information Systems and Technology (DESRIST), 2022

    Distinguished member cum laude, Association of Information Management (AIS), 2021

    Best research paper award, European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS), 2021

    Global “Best Paper of 2017” Award, AIS Senior Scholars Consortium, Association of Information Systems, 2018 

    Scientific Impact Award (Kategorie senior researcher), Profilbereich Business Innovation, School of Management, Universität St. Gallen, 2012

    Mitgliedschaften

    Association of German Management Professors (VHB, Member of the executive committee 2011-2014)
    Swiss Chapter of the Association of Information Systems (AIS, president 2012-2016)
    International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP, Swiss National Representative, Technical Committee 8 "Information Systems" 2011-2018)

    Editorial Board

    Journals (current):
    Associate Editor, MIS Quarterly Executive
    Member of the Editorial Board, Enterprise Modelling and Information Systems Architectures Journal (EMISA)

    Journals (past):
    Senior Editor, European Journal of Information Systems
    Vice Editor-in-Chief and Department Editor, Business & Information Systems Engineering Journal
    Member of the Editorial Board, International Journal of Information Systems and e-Business Management (ISeB)