Business and Information Systems Engineering Links Science with Entrepreneurship

One of the major success indicators for applied research sciences is the rate of transfer from research into practice. Only if concrete and economically successful products are derived from research results, such sciences can induce an impact. However, this process of innovation mandatorily needs entrepreneurship. Within the domain of business information systems, the two German enterprises SAP AG and IDS Scheer AG demonstrate that linking research and innovation is the key to lasting success on the information technology markets. German industry has significant disadvantages concerning the cost of human resources. Therefore it can be only successful with products that incorporate a high degree of innovation and that are consequently highly priced. But the invention of such products needs scientific research as a source of inspiration. Germany has a highly developed infrastructure of research facilities and organizations. However, they need to be better coordinated and aligned with business needs. Vice versa, enterprises need to actively approach the scientific community in order to clearly formulate their demand. Such a strategy requires changes on all sides. To achieve a change in the domain of science, it is necessary to change the profile of leading researchers, such as full professors. They should incorporate attributes of an entrepreneur and be profiled more as a research manager who tries to anticipate future needs and to develop their unit in terms of research subjects as well as personnel and financial resources. Consequently, the process of application, selection and review of leading researchers should be more oriented on processes that are common in enterprises. E. g. external head-hunters can be involved in the searching and assessing process in order to obtain the best qualified person for the research vacancy. Also enterprises need to change their attitude towards scientific research. In order to foster this process, executives could be invited to advisory and supervisory boards of research organisations. Furthermore, these executives must be proactively informed about the research activities and results in order to attract their interest and to show potentials for a transfer into products. There is still a long way to go in the hunt for innovation leadership and all these suggestions can only be a starting point

Panel: @dministration 21 Public Administration in the Era of the Internet

Inherently, public administration is a paper-based information business that handles sensitive data and includes citizens, enterprises and various authorities. It is embedded in a legal framework of defined administrative processes based on the principle of the division of labour. Recently, the demand for a close contact to citizens and restricted financial resources show the need for a change in public administrations in order to become fast and efficient organisations. Present reform approaches in public administration are driven by information technology. Within distinct authorities and administrations isolated IT-applications were replaced by partially integrated information systems. Meanwhile first network- and Internet-technologies are successfully implemented and support the E-Government-approach of an interconnection between public administrations, citizens and enterprises within the public-private-partnership. Concerning the organisation of administrations, first steps into a new public management were taken with controlling approaches and decentralised organisational units. At the beginning of the 21st century, the growing „House of Europe“ generates new requirements for its public administrations. New dimensions of trade, environment, infrastructure and migration will cause a paneuropean communication and co-ordination challenge for the public sector, its organisation and information technology. Are public administrations able to work with paperlessprocesses and what kinds of administrative processes are suitable for an electronic treatment? How can public administrations interconnect their inter-organisational processes on a national or international (European) base? How can the concerned legislation or administration behaviours be aligned? Which technical means are necessary to integrate citizens and enterprises into electronic administration processes? Innovative information systems for integrated electronic and inter-organisational administration processes embedded in a common legal framework may be a powerful instrument for public administrations to become more effective and customer-oriented organisations. To continue this process of reorganisation and modernisation the ECIS 2000 track „Public-Administration“ focuses evolutions that challenge public administrations as well as IC/IT research and development in the 21st century. The contributions to the track focus on • Organisational concepts, information systems and system architectures for a new public management, based on new information or Internet technologies. • Reflections concerning electronic business between citizens, enterprises and administrations (E-government). • Requirements for electronic intra- and inter-organisational administration processes, e.g. aspects of legal regulations, data security, virtual products and services, procedural models for implementation. • Knowledge Management and informatization in the public sector: developing the learning administration. • Reference models and scalable solutions for similar administration procedures. • Concepts and case studies about successful change programs in public organizations. • Standards (technical/content) for interadministrative business processes and communication. The different sessions and the panel discussion handle these questions from a wide range of perspectives but with the common goal of making the theory and practice of EGovernment and the evolution of information systems in public administrations work