The Remote Working Study 2022 is focused on the transition to work from home (WFH) triggered by the stay at home directives of 2020. These directives required employees to work in their private premises wherever possible to reduce the transmission of the coronavirus. The study, conducted by the Center for Enterprise Information Research (CEIR) at the University of Koblenz from December 2021 to January 2022, explores the transition to remote working. The objective of the survey is to collect baseline information about organisations’ remote work experiences during and immediately following the COVID-19 lockdowns. The survey was completed by the key persons responsible for the implementation and/or management of the digital workplace in 19 German and Swiss organisations. The data presented in this report was collected from member organisations of the IndustryConnect initiative. IndustryConnect is a university-industry research programme that is coordinated by researchers from the University of Koblenz. It focuses on research in the areas of the digital workplace and enterprise collaboration technologies, and facilitates the generation of new research insights and the exchange of experiences among user companies.

Enterprise collaboration platforms are increasingly gaining importance in organisations. Integrating groupware functionality and enterprise social software (ESS), they have substantially been transforming everyday work in organisations. While traditional collaboration systems have been studied in Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) for many years, the large-scale, infrastructural and heterogeneous nature of enterprise collaboration platforms remains uncharted. Enterprise collaboration platforms are embedded into organisations’ digital workplace and come with a high degree of complexity, ambiguity, and generativity. When introduced, they are empty shells with no pre-determined purposes of use. They afford interpretive flexibility, and thus are shaping and being shaped by and in their social context. Outcomes and benefits emerge and evolve over time in an open-ended process and as the digital platform is designed through use. In order to make the most of the platform and associated continuous digital transformation, organisations have to develop the necessary competencies and capabilities. Extant literature on enterprise collaboration platforms has proliferated and provide valuable insights on diverse topics, such as implementation strategies, adoption hurdles, or collaboration use cases, however, they tend to disregard their evolvability and related multiple time frames and settings. Thus, this research aims to identify, investigate, and theorise the ways that enterprise collaboration platforms are changing over time and space and the ways that organisations build digital transformation capabilities. To address this research aim two different case study types are conducted: i) in-depth longitudinal qualitative case study, where case narratives and visualisations capturing hard-to-summarise complexities in the enterprise collaboration platform evolution are developed and ii) multiple-case studies to capture, investigate, and compare cross-case elements that contribute to the shaping of enterprise collaboration platforms in different medium-sized and large organisations from a range of industries. Empirical data is captured and investigated through a multi-method research design (incl. focus groups, surveys, in-depth interviews, literature reviews, qualitative content analysis, descriptive statistics) with shifting units of analysis. The findings reveal unique change routes with unanticipated outcomes and transformations, context-specific change strategies to deal with multiple challenges (e.g. GDPR, works council, developments in the technological field, competing systems, integration of blue-collar workers), co-existing platform uses, and various interacting actors from the immediate setting and broader context. The interpretation draws on information infrastructure (II) as a theoretical lens and related sociotechnical concepts and perspectives (incl. inscriptions, social worlds, biography of artefacts). Iteratively, a conceptual model of the building of digital transformation capabilities is developed, integrating the insights gained from the study of enterprise collaboration platform change and developed monitoring change tools (e.g. MoBeC framework). It assists researchers and practitioners in understanding the building of digital transformation capabilities from a theoretical and practical viewpoint and organisations implement the depicted knowledge in their unique digital transformation processes.

The flexible integration of information from distributed and complex information systems poses a major challenge for organisations. The ontology-based information integration concept SoNBO (Social Network of Business Objects) developed and presented in this dissertation addresses these challenges. In an ontology-based concept, the data structure in the source systems (e.g. operational application systems) is described with the help of a schema (= ontology). The ontology and the data from the source systems can be used to create a (virtualised or materialised) knowledge graph, which is used for information access. The schema can be flexibly adapted to the changing needs of a company regarding their information integration. SoNBO differs from existing concepts known from the Semantic Web (OBDA = Ontology-based Data Access, EKG = Enterprise Knowledge Graph) both in the structure of the company-specific ontology (= Social Network of Concepts) as well as in the structure of the user-specific knowledge graph (= Social Network of Business Objects) and makes use of social principles (known from Enterprise Social Software). Following a Design Science Research approach, the SoNBO framework was developed and the findings documented in this dissertation. The framework provides guidance for the introduction of SoNBO in a company and the knowledge gained from the evaluation (in the company KOSMOS Verlag) is used to demonstrate its viability. The results (SoNBO concept and SoNBO framework) are based on the synthesis of the findings from a structured literature review and the investigation of the status quo of ontology-based information integration in practice: For the status quo in practice, the basic idea of SoNBO is demonstrated in an in-depth case study about the engineering office Vössing, which has been using a self-developed SoNBO application for a few years. The status quo in the academic literature is presented in the form of a structured literature analysis on ontology-based information integration approaches. This dissertation adds to theory in the field of ontology-based information integration approaches (e. g. by an evaluated artefact) and provides an evaluated artefact (the SoNBO Framework) for practice.

The industry standard Decision Model and Notation (DMN) has enabled a new way for the formalization of business rules since 2015. Here, rules are modeled in so-called decision tables, which are defined by input columns and output columns. Furthermore, decisions are arranged in a graph-like structure (DRD level), which creates dependencies between them. With a given input, the decisions now can be requested by appropriate systems. Thereby, activated rules produce output for future use. However, modeling mistakes produces erroneous models, which can occur in the decision tables as well as at the DRD level. According to the Design Science Research Methodology, this thesis introduces an implementation of a verification prototype for the detection and resolution of these errors while the modeling phase. Therefore, presented basics provide the needed theoretical foundation for the development of the tool. This thesis further presents the architecture of the tool and the implemented verification capabilities. Finally, the created prototype is evaluated.

Unkontrolliert gewachsene Software-Architekturen zeichnen sich i.d.R. durch fehlende oder schlecht nachvollziehbare Strukturen aus. Hierfür können als Gründe beispielsweise mangelhafte Definitionen oder ein langsames Erodieren sein. Dies ist auch unter dem Begriff "Big Ball of Mud" bekannt. Langfristig erhöhen solche architekturellen Mängel nicht nur die Entwicklungskosten, sondern können letztendlich auch Veränderungen vollständig verhindern. Die Software-Architektur benötigt somit eine kontinuierliche Weiterentwicklung, um solchen Effekten entgegen wirken zu können. Eine gute Software-Architektur unterstützt die Software-Entwicklung und erhöht die Produktivität. Auf der Ebene von Quellcode existieren bereits etablierte Vorgehensweisen zur kontrollierten Verbesserung der Qualität. Im Gegensatz hierzu existieren für Verbesserungen einer Software-Architektur jedoch keine allgemeingültigen Vorgehensweisen, welche unabhängig vom Anwendungsfall angewandt werden können. An diesem Punkt setzt die vorliegende Arbeit an. Bisherige Arbeiten beschäftigen sich einerseits nur mit Teilpunkten des Problems. Anderseits existieren zwar bereits Vorgehensweisen zum Treffen von Architekturentscheidungen, jedoch agieren diese auf einer stark abstrakten Ebene ohne praktische Beispiele. Diese Arbeit stellt eine leichtgewichtige Vorgehensweise zum gezielten Verbessern einer Software-Architektur vor. Die Vorgehensweise basiert auf einem generischen Problemlösungsprozess. Auf dieser Basis ist ein Prozess zum Lösen von Problemen einer Software-Architektur entwickelt worden. Im Fokus der Arbeit stehen zur Eingrenzung des Umfanges architektonische Probleme aufgrund geforderter Variabilität sowie externer Abhängigkeiten. Die wissenschaftliche Methodik, welcher der Arbeit zugrunde liegt, agiert im Rahmen der Design Science Research (DSR). Über mehrere Iterationen hinweg wurde eine Vorgehensweise entwickelt, welche sich an Softwareentwickler mit zwei bis drei Jahren Erfahrung und Kenntnissen über Grundlage der Softwareentwicklung und Software-Architektur richtet. Fünf Schritte inkl. Verweise auf aussagekräftige Literatur leiten Anwender anschließend durch den Prozess zur gezielten Verbesserung einer Software-Architektur.

The Internet of Things is still one of the most relevant topics in the field of economics and research powered by the increasing demand of innovative services. Cost reductions in manufacturing of IoT hardware and the development of completely new communication ways has led to the point of bil-lions of devices connected to the internet. But in order to rule this new IoT landscape a standardized solution to conquer these challenges must be developed, the IoT Architecture. This thesis examines the structure, purpose and requirements of IoT Architecture Models in the global IoT landscape and proposes an overview across the selected ones. For that purpose, a struc-tured literature analysis on this topic is conducted within this thesis, including an analysis on three existing research approaches trying to frame this topic and a tool supported evaluation of IoT Archi-tecture literature with over 200 accessed documents. Furthermore, a coding of literature with the help of the specialised coding tool ATLAS.ti 8 is conduct-ed on 30 different IoT Architecture Models. In a final step these Architecture Models are categorized and compared to each other showing that the environment of IoT and its Architectures gets even more complex the further the research goes.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a fast-growing, technological concept, which aims to integrate various physical and virtual objects into a global network to enable interaction and communication between those objects (Atzori, Iera and Morabito, 2010). The application possibilities are manifold and may transform society and economy similarly to the usage of the internet (Chase, 2013). Furthermore, the Internet of Things occupies a central role for the realisation of visionary future concepts, for example, Smart City or Smart Healthcare. In addition, the utilisation of this technology promises opportunities for the enhancement of various sustainability aspects, and thus for the transformation to a smarter, more efficient and more conscious dealing with natural resources (Maksimovic, 2017). The action principle of sustainability increasingly gains attention in the societal and academical discourse. This is reasoned by the partly harmful consumption and production patterns of the last century (Mcwilliams et al., 2016). Relating to sustainability, the advancing application of IoT technology also poses risks. Following the precautionary principle, these risks should be considered early (Harremoës et al., 2001). Risks of IoT for sustainability include the massive amounts of energy and raw materials which are required for the manufacturing and operation of IoT objects and furthermore, the disposal of those objects (Birkel et al., 2019). The exact relations in the context of IoT and sustainability are insufficiently explored to this point and do not constitute a central element within the discussion of this technology (Behrendt, 2019). Therefore, this thesis aims to develop a comprehensive overview of the relations between IoT and sustainability. To achieve this aim, this thesis utilises the methodology of Grounded Theory in combination with a comprehensive literature review. The analysed literature primarily consists of research contributions in the field of Information Technology (IT). Based on this literature, aspects, solution approaches, effects and challenges in the context of IoT and sustainability were elaborated. The analysis revealed two central perspectives in this context. IoT for Sustainability (IoT4Sus) describes the utilisation and usage of IoT-generated information to enhance sustainability aspects. In contrast, Sustainability for IoT (Sus4IoT) fo-cuses on sustainability aspects of the applied technology and highlights methods to reduce negative impacts, which are associated with the manufacturing and operation of IoT. Elaborated aspects and relations were illustrated in the comprehensive CCIS Framework. This framework represents a tool for the capturing of relevant aspects and relations in this context and thus supports the awareness of the link between IoT and sustainability. Furthermore, the framework suggests an action principle to optimise the performance of IoT systems regarding sustainability. The central contribution of this thesis is represented by the providence of the CCIS Framework and the contained information regarding the aspects and relations of IoT and sustainability.

The status of Business Process Management (BPM) recommender systems is not quite clear as research states. The use of recommenders familiarized itself with the world during the rise of technological evolution in the past decade.Ever since then, several BPM recommender systems came about. However, not a lot of research is conducted in this field. It is not well known to what broad are the technologies used and how are they used. Moreover, this master’s thesis aims at surveying the BPM recommender systems existing. Building on this, the recommendations come in different shapes. They can be positionbased where an element is to be placed at an element’s front, back or to autocomplete a missing link. On the other hand, Recommendations can be textual, to fill the labels of the elements. Furthermore, the literature review for BPM recommender systems took place under the guides of a literature review framework. The framework suggests 5stages of consecutive stages for this sake. The first stage is defining a scope for the research. Secondly, conceptualizing the topic by choosing key terms for literature research. After that in the third stage, comes the research stage.As for the fourth stage, it suggests choosing analysis features over which the literature is to be synthesized and compared. Finally, it recommends defining the research agenda to describe the reason for the literature review. By invoking the mentioned methodology, this master’s thesis surveyed 18 BPM recommender systems. It was found as a result of the survey that there are not many different technologies for implementing the recommenders. It was also found that the majority of the recommenders suggest nodes that are yet to come in the model, which is called forward recommending. Also, one of the results of the survey indicated the scarce use of textual recommendations to BPM labels. Finally, 18 recommenders are considered less than excepted for a developing field therefore as a result, the survey found a shortage in the number of BPM recommender systems. The results indicate several shortages in several aspects in the field of BPM recommender systems. On this basis, this master’s thesis recommends the future work on it the results.

Business rules have become an important tool to warrant compliance at their business processes. But the collection of these business rules can have various conflicting elements. This can lead to a violation of the compliance to be achieved. This conflicting elements are therefore a kind of inconsistencies, or quasi incon- sistencies in the business rule base. The target for this thesis is to investigate how those quasi inconsistencies in business rules can be detected and analyzed. To this aim, we develop a comprehensive library which allows to apply results from the scientific field of inconsistency measurement to business rule formalisms that are actually used in practice.

The goal of this thesis is to create a recommender system (RS) for business processes, based on the existing ProM plugin RegPFA. To accomplish this task, firstly an interface must be created that sets up and expands a database receiving probabilistic finite automata (PFA) created by RegPFA in tsml format as input. Secondly, a Java program must be designed that uses said database to recommend the process elements that are most likely to follow a given sequence of process elements.