@inproceedings{WestnerFuhrmannWaasetal., author = {Westner, Markus and Fuhrmann, Thomas and Waas, Thomas and Skelton, David}, title = {Internationalization of a Computer Science Faculty}, series = {9th Annual International Conference on Computer Science Education: Innovation and Technology (CSEIT 2018), 2018, Singapore}, booktitle = {9th Annual International Conference on Computer Science Education: Innovation and Technology (CSEIT 2018), 2018, Singapore}, doi = {10.5176/2251-2195_CSEIT18.118}, pages = {33 -- 38}, abstract = {The paper at hand describes how a regional university of applied sciences tried to internationalize its learning and teaching environment. It describes the challenges encountered, the managerial approach taken, illustrates the implemented initiatives, and how effective they turned out. The results might be relevant to faculty staff in managerial positions at regional universities all over the world that face the challenge to internationalize their teaching and learning environment for the benefit of their domestic students.}, subject = {Internationalisierung}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{SkeltonWestner, author = {Skelton, David and Westner, Markus}, title = {International internships}, series = {Refereed Proceedings of the 3rd International Research Symposium on Cooperative and Work-Integrated Education, Stuttgart, Germany : 3rd - 27th of June, 2018, Stuttgart, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany}, booktitle = {Refereed Proceedings of the 3rd International Research Symposium on Cooperative and Work-Integrated Education, Stuttgart, Germany : 3rd - 27th of June, 2018, Stuttgart, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany}, editor = {Zegwaard, Karsten E. and Ford, Marty}, isbn = {978-0-473-46291-8}, pages = {193 -- 198}, abstract = {Students are increasingly considering expanding their cooperative experiences into the global environment. This paper investigates the experiences of students undertaking their internship capstone in other countries under the supervision of a partner institute and a participating industry sponsor. These experiences of German students interning in New Zealand (NZ), and NZ students interning in Germany offer an insight into the organisation required by the partner institutions and the comparative cultural and technical differences that these students have encountered. The international agreement between Ostbayerische Technische Hochschule (OTH) Regensburg, Germany, and the Eastern Institute of Technology (EIT), NZ, has already built a mutual framework of visiting lecturers teaching in each other's institutes, and a programme of hosting exchange students in each other's institutes. A natural progression of this partnership has now moved into the active recruitment and brokering of international internship opportunities for their respective final year Business and Information Technology (IT) students. The benefits are evident personally to the students, which are discussed in this paper, but there are also clear benefits for EIT and OTH in terms of marketing opportunities for prospective students and enriching the learning environments. This paper explores the challenges faced by the Schools of Business and Computing at EIT as it pioneers the first two years of establishing internship options for final year German exchange students within NZ, and matching final year EIT degree students to industry sponsors within Bavaria, a federal state of Germany. A qualitative approach was taken for this study with data acquired from internship students involved, the key organising lecturers from each institute, and industry sponsors from each country. A number of student, staff and industry representative interviews were conducted along with a cultural appraisal of relevant literature in the global education field. A further overview of the macro benefits for the partner institutes in terms of marketing, and programme enrichment is also part of the conclusion. The paper may be useful as a template for other institutes on developing international internship opportunities through global partners.}, subject = {Wirtschaftswissenschaftliches Studium}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{BaryWestnerStrahringer, author = {Bary, Benedikt von and Westner, Markus and Strahringer, Susanne}, title = {Do researchers investigate what practitioners deem relevant?}, series = {Proceedings of the 20th IEEE International Conference on Business Informatics (IEEE CBI 2018): Vienna, Austria, 11-14 July}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 20th IEEE International Conference on Business Informatics (IEEE CBI 2018): Vienna, Austria, 11-14 July}, doi = {10.1109/CBI.2018.00014}, pages = {40 -- 49}, abstract = {There is a common understanding amongst academics that information systems (IS) research sometimes has limited relevance for practitioners. This can be explained by the fact that research lags behind the fast moving IS environment, has limited practical applicability and is hard to access. We have focused on the research area of IS backsourcing, and analyzed practitioner literature to increase our understanding of topics of interest for practitioners, to determine a potential gap between academic and practitioner literature, and to identify future research directions in this field. We observed that most publications are either news or background articles, focusing on describing backsourcing cases. Additionally, we identified four recurring themes, namely reasons for backsourcing, presentation of survey results, discussion of industry trends, and backsourcing success stories. The main reasons identified to trigger backsourcing decisions are cost savings, quality improvements, and increasing control and flexibility. By comparing our findings with academic literature on IS backsourcing, we conclude that generally both literature types cover similar topics. However, researchers have a more formulative or interpretive focus than the often descriptive practitioner literature. Academic literature also examines a broader range of topics, while practitioner literature has a narrower focus. Additionally, we observe one difference regarding applied terminology: while researchers employ the term backsourcing, practitioners mostly use back in-house or insourcing. Our paper contributes to facilitating the exchange between academics and practitioners, presents topics to consider when aiming to increase practical relevance and provides researchers with concrete directions for future research within the field of IS backsourcing.}, subject = {Betriebliches Informationssystem}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{KoenningWestnerStrahringer, author = {K{\"o}nning, Michael and Westner, Markus and Strahringer, Susanne}, title = {Multisourcing on the Rise: Results from an Analysis of more than 1,000 IT Outsourcing Deals in the ASG Region}, series = {Tagungsband Multikonferenz Wirtschaftsinformatik 2018 (MKWI 2018): data driven X - turning data into value, Leuphana Unversit{\"a}t L{\"u}neburg, 6.-9. M{\"a}rz 2018}, booktitle = {Tagungsband Multikonferenz Wirtschaftsinformatik 2018 (MKWI 2018): data driven X - turning data into value, Leuphana Unversit{\"a}t L{\"u}neburg, 6.-9. M{\"a}rz 2018}, number = {Band V}, publisher = {Leuphana, Universit{\"a}t L{\"u}neburg}, address = {L{\"u}neburg}, pages = {1813 -- 1824}, abstract = {Information technology outsourcing (ITO) has long been recognized for its numerous potential advantages such as lowering costs, accessing external skills, and improving efficiency, flexibility, and quality. However, it also exposes client companies to various risks, including vendor lock-in, poor agility, or insufficient vendor expertisein individual domains, especially inincreasingly dynamic market environments. Consequently, companies increasingly implement multisourcing by composing a "best of breed" set of vendors for their various IT services. In this paper,we use a dataset of 1,016 ITO deals closed with Austrian, Swiss, and German client companies between 2006 and 2017 to analyze the development of the ITO market in general and multisourcing in particular. Our results show decreasing services run rates, shorter contract lengths, an increasing number of concurrent service providers per client,and a distribution of the total number of contracts to a larger set of vendors, all pointing towards an increasing popularity of multisourcing.}, subject = {Outsourcing}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{KobusWestner, author = {Kobus, J{\"o}rn and Westner, Markus}, title = {Ranking-type delphi studies in IS research}, series = {Proceedings of the 9th IADIS International Conference Information Systems, Vilamoura, Portugal, 9-11 April}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 9th IADIS International Conference Information Systems, Vilamoura, Portugal, 9-11 April}, pages = {28 -- 38}, abstract = {Ranking-type Delphi is a frequently used method in IS research. However, besides several studies investigating a rigorous application of ranking-type Delphi as a research method, a comprehensive and precise step-by-step guide on how to conduct a rigorous ranking-type Delphi study in IS research is currently missing. In addition, a common critic of Delphi studies in general is that it is unclear if there is indeed authentic consensus of the panelists, or if panelists only agree because of other reasons (e.g. acquiescence bias or tiredness to disagreement after several rounds). This also applies to ranking-type Delphi studies. Therefore, this study aims to (1) Provide a rigorous step-by-step guide to conduct ranking-type Delphi studies through synthesizing results of existing research and (2) Offer an analytical extension to the ranking-type Delphi method by introducing Best/Worst Scaling, which originated in Marketing and Consumer Behavior research. A guiding example is introduced to increase comprehensibility of the proposals. Future research needs to validate the step-by-step guide in an empirical setting as well as test the suitability of Best/Worst Scaling within described research contexts.}, subject = {Delphi-Technik}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{WestnerSkeltonTinat, author = {Westner, Markus and Skelton, David and Tinat, Johannes}, title = {Enhancing students' IS offshoring capabilities}, series = {Proceedings of the 7th Annual Conference of Computing and Information Technology Research and Education New Zealand (CITRENZ 2016), Wellington, New Zealand, July 11-13}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 7th Annual Conference of Computing and Information Technology Research and Education New Zealand (CITRENZ 2016), Wellington, New Zealand, July 11-13}, pages = {9}, abstract = {An appreciation of globalisation issues by information systems (IS) graduates is a growing requirement of organisations with global reach. This paper discusses the planning of a joint course to be delivered online and face to face by two lecturers representing two tertiary institutes in Germany and New Zealand respectively. The IS offshoring content of the course is relatively unique and aspects of globalisation will be demonstrated through the dual country delivery of the course. The two lecturers involved have spent time lecturing and studying in their global partner's country and tertiary institutes and so this joint delivery method is likely to also strengthen cultural ties between the two participating institutions including the students involved. Further research goals and issues are discussed for post-delivery of this dual country blended course. This paper provides a basis for this concept to be evaluated in further research.}, subject = {Informatikstudium}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{KobusWestnerStrahringer, author = {Kobus, J{\"o}rn and Westner, Markus and Strahringer, Susanne}, title = {Lean Management of IT Organizations}, series = {Proceedings of the 37th International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS 2016), Dublin,}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 37th International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS 2016), Dublin,}, pages = {1 -- 12}, abstract = {Lean Management has been successfully implemented in production organizations since several decades. The study at hand investigates the implementation of Lean Management to IT organizations (Lean IT). The study offers three contributions: First, it explains on a conceptual level how Lean Management can be transferred from production to IT organizations (philosophy, principles, tools). Second, it provides a theoretical perspective on why Lean IT can be beneficial for IT organizations (IT Slack theory). Third, it provides insights to the stated research questions (three benefits and three propositions) from an initial case study of an internal IT service provider for a large international insurance company (> US\$25 Billion revenue; >20,000 employees; active in >120 countries) and lays out the research methodology and potential focus areas for further studies.}, subject = {Lean Management}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{KopperWestner, author = {Kopper, Andreas and Westner, Markus}, title = {Towards a Taxonomy for Shadow IT}, series = {Proceedings of the 22nd Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS 2016), San Diego, August 11-14}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 22nd Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS 2016), San Diego, August 11-14}, pages = {1 -- 10}, abstract = {In a comprehensive literature review, we identified 21 different terms used for Shadow IT related concepts. This variety makes it difficult to identify related research and build upon it. To address this ambiguity, we reduce the different terms to six distinct concepts by developing a taxonomy and examining their relation¬ships. We do so by using a rigorous iterative methodology to identify common characteristics and to classify terms along them. By clustering the results, we derive and visualize the taxonomy. The identified concepts are Feral Practices, Workarounds, Shadow IT, Shadow Systems, Un-enacted Projects, and Shadow Sourcing. We elaborate on the concepts along their characteristics and clearly define and delimit them. As a result, we create a guide for their usage, increase search- and comparability, and unify existing knowledge.}, subject = {Informationstechnik}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{KopperWestner, author = {Kopper, Andreas and Westner, Markus}, title = {Deriving a Framework for Causes, Consequences, and Governance of Shadow IT from Literature}, series = {Proceedings zur Multikonferenz Wirtschaftsinformatik 2016 (MKWI 2016), Technische Universit{\"a}t Ilmenau, Th{\"u}ringen, 09.-11. M{\"a}rz 2016}, booktitle = {Proceedings zur Multikonferenz Wirtschaftsinformatik 2016 (MKWI 2016), Technische Universit{\"a}t Ilmenau, Th{\"u}ringen, 09.-11. M{\"a}rz 2016}, pages = {1687 -- 1698}, abstract = {Shadow IT is a widespread phenomenon which includes systems, services, and processes that are not part of the "official" corporate IT. The topic is still an emerging research area and slowly gaining traction in recent years but a state of the art analysis is missing to date. We therefore conduct a structured literature review to derive a framework for causes, consequences, and governance of Shadow IT. We identify motivators, enablers, and missing barriers as causes for Shadow IT, both positive and negative consequences on an organizational and a technical level and governance approaches which focus on clearance of existing or prevention of future Shadow IT. Our review reveals that constructivist, qualitative design using a case study approach dominates existing research. There are no dominant theories yet to explain Shadow IT. We also highlight possibilities for future research to focus on the less explored governance aspect.}, subject = {Informationsmanagement}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{SonnleitnerWestner, author = {Sonnleitner, Daniel and Westner, Markus}, title = {Quo vadis IT infrastructure}, series = {Proceedings of the 22nd UKAIS Conference : Ubiquitous Information Systems: Surviving and thriving in a connected society, 2017 Oxford, April 3rd-5th 2017}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 22nd UKAIS Conference : Ubiquitous Information Systems: Surviving and thriving in a connected society, 2017 Oxford, April 3rd-5th 2017}, pages = {14}, abstract = {Many IT organizations are confronted with the question whether to modernize their IT infrastructure. While most data centers run on a virtualized environment, Cloud Computing technology emerges with new characteristics on fast provision of standardized resources in a scalable IT infrastructure. Public cloud vendors offer IT services on demand, so that IT organizations do not have to operate their own hardware. Moreover, private cloud architectures gain influence, claiming to provide flexible and elastic IT infrastructure. The paper at hand guides the strategic decision for adoption of Cloud Computing on IT infrastructure. Therefore, we first introduce a taxonomy for IT infrastructure encompassing a technological and a sourcing perspective. Second, we evaluate selective areas of the taxonomy adopting the SWOT framework to understand both opportunities and challenges of Cloud Computing for IT infrastructure from a business perspective.}, subject = {Cloud Computing}, language = {en} } @article{StrahringerWestnerBary, author = {Strahringer, Susanne and Westner, Markus and Bary, Benedikt von}, title = {IT-Backsourcing}, series = {Das Wirtschaftsstudium : wisu}, journal = {Das Wirtschaftsstudium : wisu}, number = {6}, publisher = {Lange ; Mohr}, address = {D{\"u}sseldorf ; T{\"u}bingen}, pages = {702 -- 706}, abstract = {The importance of information systems (IS) for companies has grown rapidly over the recent years. For example, companies from various industries are focusing their efforts to digitize business models, to adopt agile forms of collaboration, and to leverage automation of routine tasks. This forces companies to review their IS sourcing strategies and to potentially consider alternatives for current outsourcing contracts. One potential option could be to backsource IS services currently performed by external vendors. Based on empirical observations, previous academics defined it as the repatriation of all assets, activities, and skills needed to perform IS services back in-house, which had been outsourced previously to one or multiple vendors. The distinctive characteristic of backsourcing is the change in ownership back to the mother organization. This distinguishes the term backsourcing from similar terms, e.g., backshoring, reshoring, or relocating, which rather focus on the change in location of the service delivery. At the initial sourcing decision, the strategy to outsource an IS service was considered most promising. However, certain developments both inside the company, but also on a broader industry level may lead to a re-evaluation of the situation and thus to an adjustment of the original sourcing strategy. Over the last years, there has been a strong increase in cloud-based services and a shift towards the deployment of standardized, almost "industrialized" applications as services. Before, large companies leveraged their size in realizing economies of scale within their sourcing volumes. The raise of cloud computing as well as standardization of service delivery decreased those benefits and led towards a decline in large outsourcing contracts across a variety of services and a growth of multi-sourcing of individual IS services from the respective "best-in-breed" vendors for shorter time periods. Besides sourcing the best vendor for each service, companies that implement multi-sourcing strategies additionally aim for cost benefits due to an increased competition between vendors, and an increase in agility and adaptability. At the same time, a move towards multi-sourcing strategies with shorter contract durations leads to an increase in so-called "second generation sourcing decisions", namely whether to continue outsourcing a respective service or to bring the service back in-house. Given the developments within the IS environment, this research projects aims at understanding why IS services are backsourced and which factors influence a company's decision to backsource an IS service.}, subject = {Betriebliches Informationssystem}, language = {de} } @inproceedings{Westner, author = {Westner, Markus}, title = {Video-enhanced lectures in high-teaching-load environments with limited resources}, series = {Proceddings of the 11th International Technology, Education and Development Conference (INTED 2017), Valencia, Spain. 6-8 March}, booktitle = {Proceddings of the 11th International Technology, Education and Development Conference (INTED 2017), Valencia, Spain. 6-8 March}, doi = {10.21125/inted.2017.0168}, pages = {197 -- 207}, abstract = {Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have been gaining a lot of attention in the last years. Those courses and their videos are often professionally produced and incorporate a significant investment of time and financial resources. In many cases such courses are "flagship" productions of the associated school or university and produced with budgets lecturers in other institutions do not have available. This makes the use of videos in a regular teaching environment challenging. In addition, lecturers often act in high-teaching-load environments further tightening their capacity constraints. This raises the question whether and how lecturers can benefit from videos in their lectures for increased teaching effectiveness while not sacrificing teaching efficiency. The paper at hand attempts to address this question by providing a critical perspective on the use of videos in a high-teaching-load environment characterized by little financial and staff resource availability. The paper thereby builds upon the three years' experience of its author in using videos to enhance lectures in German tertiary education institutions in a multi-language, i.e., English and German, teaching environment. The presented findings are both relevant for teaching practice and research: lecturers may benefit from the presented ideas and experiences and may adopt them for their teaching. Researchers may find starting points for new research opportunities on the effectiveness and efficiency of video-enhanced lecturing and learning. The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 describes the context of the study from an institutional and technological perspective. Section 3 outlines the methodology applied and 4 how data was collected. Results from data analysis are presented in section 5. The paper concludes with a reflective summary and outlook in section 6.}, subject = {Hochschulbildung}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{WestnerKennedyFurlong, author = {Westner, Markus and Kennedy, F. and Furlong, A.}, title = {Global student collaboration through international blended learning}, series = {Proceedings of the 10th Annual International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation (ICERI2017), Seville, Spain. 16-18 November}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 10th Annual International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation (ICERI2017), Seville, Spain. 16-18 November}, doi = {10.21125/iceri.2017.2030}, pages = {7625 -- 7631}, abstract = {In today's business, collaboration in globally distributed teams becomes more and more common. This is particularly the case in professional services and information systems (IS) where the immaterial nature of services makes globally distributed service creation easily possible. Consequently, companies expect that graduates have intercultural skills and that they are able to work in globally distributed teams, especially in professional services like consulting or in IS. However, management or IS curriculums often lack courses that teach those respective skills. The suggested course attempts to fill this gap through an innovative course design and delivery. The course intends to replicate a professional project environment in which the students are supposed to deliver a project as a joint international team. In the beginning of the course, students learn key aspects of project management, intercultural management, distributed collaboration, and the professional services industry in a self-paced manner through video lectures. Then they form teams, plan their project, and subsequently execute their project plan jointly. Instructors from the participating institutions supervise and coach the students. The project execution is supposed to resemble a business project with a meeting schedule, agreed deliverables, regular steering committees in which the instructors play the role of the clients. This paper outlines the concept of this international blended-teaching course. It suggests potential learning objectives, a course description, a teaching syllabus, and an assessment framework.}, subject = {Integriertes Lernen}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{KobusWestner, author = {Kobus, J{\"o}rn and Westner, Markus}, title = {Lean Management of IT Organizations}, series = {Proceedings of the 19th Pacific Asia Conference in Information Systems (PACIS 2015), Singapore, Jul 5-9}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 19th Pacific Asia Conference in Information Systems (PACIS 2015), Singapore, Jul 5-9}, pages = {16}, abstract = {Lean Management has been successfully applied by companies around the world, mainly in production/manufacturing functions. Recently, the interest to investigate a wider application of Lean Management especially in service functions increased. However, it is not clear how Lean Management can be applied to IT organizations. Therefore, this study aims to provide an overview on common characteristics and future research directions. A literature review on existing scholarly research from January 2004 to June 2014 is conducted. Using a database-driven search approach, a total of 1,206 research contributions are found of which 49 were identified as relevant. Results indicate a low theory grounding of mostly formulative and interpretative research items. This implies that research on Lean Management of IT organizations is still at its nascent state. Content-wise, five research themes emerge. The majority of research investigates IT organizations in a role to support Lean Management in production/manufacturing functions (determining "what to work on"), therefore more research on how Lean Management can be applied to IT organizations themselves (determining "how to work") could be beneficial. Future research could also try to build on Change Management theories, as the implementation of Lean Management is of transformational character.}, subject = {Lean Management}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{KobusWestner, author = {Kobus, J{\"o}rn and Westner, Markus}, title = {Lean Management of IT Organizations}, series = {Proceedings of the 21th Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS 2015), Puerto Rico, August 13-15}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 21th Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS 2015), Puerto Rico, August 13-15}, pages = {1 -- 17}, abstract = {Lean Management has been successfully applied in production/manufacturing functions since more than four decades. Recently, the interest to investigate Lean Management also in service functions increased. Therefore, this study aims to (1) Consolidate critical success factors (CSFs) for the implementation of Lean Management of IT organizations; and (2) Describe a theoretical foundation for these CSFs. With respect to (1) a database-driven search was conducted. CSFs then were extracted and categorized. In total 13 CSF groups were assigned to three dimensions: Mindset and behavior; Organization and skills; and Process facilitation and performance management. To understand underlying mechanisms better, and with respect to (2) we related existing (IS) theory to identified groups of CSFs. Especially, five theoretical concepts are discussed: Absorptive capacity, Agency theory, Cognitive dissonance, Dynamic capabilities, and System dynamics. Future research needs to validate the results of (1) and (2) empirically in IT functions.}, subject = {Lean Management}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{Westner, author = {Westner, Markus}, title = {Antecedents of success in IS offshoring projects}, series = {Proceedings of the 17th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS 2009), Verona}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 17th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS 2009), Verona}, pages = {3104 -- 3116}, abstract = {The paper presents a research model and a measurement instrument for a research-in-progress study on the antecedents of success in IS offshoring projects. In this empirical-confirmatory study, we intend to analyse the impact of the constructs "offshoring expertise", "trust in offshore service provider", "project suitability", "knowledge transfer", and "liaison quality" on offshore project success. Constructs and indicators are derived from an extensive literature review. We plan to formulate a structural equation model and to test it using partial least squares (PLS) as an analysis technique. Our research model addresses the paucity of research that quantitatively examines offshoring success.}, subject = {Informationstechnik}, language = {en} } @book{Westner, author = {Westner, Markus}, title = {IS offshoring}, publisher = {Gabler}, address = {Wiesbaden}, isbn = {978-3-8349-2046-1}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-8349-8407-4}, abstract = {Information systems (IS) offshoring describes the transfer of IS services to an offshoring service provider in a near or far away country. It has received growing attention in the past and there is a strong momentum in shifting IS services abroad. Markus Westner examines the IS offshoring phenomenon from the perspective of German companies. He first provides an overview of the current literature in the field of IS offshoring. Based on interviews with 47 industry experts, evaluation criteria for selecting projects for offshoring are identified. Finally, the author examines determinants of IS offshore project success in German companies based on a statistical analysis of 304 projects using structural equation modeling (PLS).}, subject = {Informationssystem}, language = {en} }