Information systems and, in particular, social media (e.g., online social networks, wikis, rating and review communities, and discussion forums) are now an integral part of our society. They make it possible to carry out parts of value creation, such as product development, sales, branding and service, together with market participants in a distributed and digitized manner. Social media can also make a valuable contribution within a company - for example, by improving the exchange of information and knowledge in enterprise social networks. In this context, the question of quantifying the network effects occurring in social media is of particular importance in science and practice. In addition, social media and the Internet provide companies with enormous amounts of data in structured (e.g., relationships between network actors) or unstructured form (e.g., text content of tweets). The targeted and well-founded analysis of this data using automated methods from the fields of social network analysis and text mining enables companies to improve decision support and holds great potential, for example in customer relationship management. Our research in this area focuses on the following topics:

• Information Management 2.0 / Enterprise Social Networks
• Development of quantitative methods for customer evaluation and management
• Identification of so-called "key users" in (enterprise) social networks
• Knowledge generation through social network analysis and text mining

However, modern information systems and especially social media not only add economic value, but can also make a major contribution to pressing social problems and challenges such as (youth) unemployment. For example, we have been able to show in studies that mobile applications improve the efforts of young job seekers and that online peer groups (i.e., digital self-help groups) in particular prove to be value-adding in numerous social contexts such as unemployment under difficult conditions, unemployment of older people, career orientation of young people, or the integration of refugees. The digital character of modern information systems brings with it advantages such as temporal and spatial flexibility as well as the possibility of anonymity and thus protected exchange. Our research in this area focuses on the following topics:

• Design and evaluation of new IS approaches to solve societal challenges.
• Functionality and impact of online peer groups.

In addition to the fundamental nature of our research, the theoretical findings obtained are applied and validated in projects with companies as well as public sector institutions.

#Social Media #ESN #Key User #CRM #Mobile Applications #Social Impact

Projects

• Digital Peer Group Counseling (DIGIPEG)
• Feasibility study "App-based peer group counseling"
• Smart Integration