Prof. Dr. Jan Recker

Jan Recker joined the Universität Hamburg in 2021 as Nucleus Professor and holder of the chair for Information Systems and Digital Innovation, funded through the Excellence Strategy of the Federal and State Governments.

Jan Recker has held multiple academic appointments. Since 2022, he is Adjunct Professor at the University of Agder (Kristiansand, Norway) and he also holds an Adjunct Professor position with the QUT Business School (Brisbane, Australia) since 2018. He presently is also Visiting Chair Professor at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Previously, he was Professor for Information Systems and Systems Development at the University of Cologne from 2018-2021, Full Professor for Digital Innovation at the School of Management at the QUT Business School in Brisbane, Australia, from 2016-2017, and inaugural holder of the Woolworths Chair of Retail Innovation and Full Professor of Information Systems in the School for Information Systems at QUT in 2012. Since 2012, he is an Honorary Guest Professor at the International School of Software at Wuhan University, China. Jan Recker holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in information systems from the University of Münster and a PhD in Information Systems from the Queensland University of Technology.

Jan Recker is an AIS Fellow, a Fellow of the Alexander-von-Humboldt-Foundation as well as a Fellow of the Liechtenstein Chapter of the Association for Information Systems. He is holder of multiple editorial appointments for the leading journals in the field of information systems: he was Editor-in-Chief for Communications of the Association for Information Systems between 2015 and 2020, and he is presently Senior Editor for the MIS Quarterly.

In his research, Jan Recker explores how organizations deal with digital innovation, digital transformation, and digital entrepreneurship. As a field researcher, he has cooperated with particularly large organizations (e.g., Woolworths, SAP, Hilti, Commonwealth Bank, Federal Police, Lufthansa, Ubisoft, federal and state governments) and with particularly small organizations, such as different start‐ups. Jan Recker employs quantitative, qualitative, and mixed field methods in his research and is also competent in design research. 

Jan Recker’s research has appeared in leading journals in information systems, management science, organization science, computer science, and social science. He has also written popular textbooks on scientific research and data analysis, which are in use in over 500 institutions in over 60 countries. He ranks as one of the most published information systems academics of all time. In 2019, he was named #1 Business Researcher under 40 years of age by the German publication Wirtschaftswoche. Jan Recker is one of the Universität Hamburg’s most cited scholars.

You can follow Jan on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Most of his papers are available for download on ResearchGate. His citations can be found on Google Scholar.

Many of his presentations and keynotes are available on Youtube and Slideshare.

Jan also co-produces the podcast thisISresearch, the main podcast series focusing on information systems research.

Jan Recker received various awards and honors throughout his academic career:

• Recipient of the 2021 SIGGreen Best Paper Award for the paper “Mobilizing IS Scholarship for a Circular Economy: Review, Synthesis, and Directions for Future Research”.
• Recipient of Outstanding Associate Editor Award by MIS Quarterly in 2019
• Recipient of an AIS Fellow Award in 2018
• Recipient of a 2014 Best Paper Award by the Journal of Information Technology Theory and Application for the paper “Suggestions for the Next Wave of BPM Research: Strengthening the Theoretical Core and Exploring the Protective Belt”
• Recipient of a 2014 Vice Chancellor’s Award for Excellence, for exceptional sustained contributions to the university in Innovative and Creative Practices
• Recipient of a 2014 Highly Commended Paper Award by the Business Process Process Management Journal for the paper “Which cultural values matter to business process management? Results from a global Delphi study”
• Recipient of a 2013 Vice Chancellor’s Performance Team Award, for outstanding contributions to the university in Productive and Sustainable Partnerships (together with T. Kohlborn)
• Recipient of a 2013 Outstanding HDR Supervision Practice Award
• Appointed as Guest Professor at the International School of Software, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China
• Nominated for a 2012 Vice Chancellor’s Award for Excellence, for exceptional sustained performance and outstanding achievement in Leadership and Research
• Nominated for a 2011 Outstanding HDR Supervision Practice Award
• Recipient of a 2010 Vice Chancellor’s Performance Team Award, for outstanding contributions to the university in consulting and service engagement (together with M. La Rosa, W. Bandara, T. Kohlborn)
• Recipient of a 2009 Vice Chancellor’s Performance Award, for outstanding contributions to the university in research
• Nominated for a 2009 Vice Chancellor’s Award for Excellence, for exceptional sustained performance and outstanding achievement in Learning and Teaching, Partnerships and Engagement, Client Focus and Leadership (together with M. Rosemann)
• Recipient of a 2009 LEX Performance Improvement Award for the Most Improved Unit by Student Evaluation
• Recipient of the QUT Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Award 2008
• Recipient of the 2008 LEX Performance Teaching Award for Best Teaching by Student Evaluation
• Runner-Up to the ICIS 2008 ACM SIGMIS Doctoral Dissertation Award
• Recipient of the ACPHIS Information Systems Doctoral Thesis Award 2008
• Recipient of a QUT Write Up Scholarship 2008
• Participant at the 2007 AMCIS Doctoral Consortium in Keystone, Colorado
• Participant at the 2006 ICIS Doctoral Consortium in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
• Recipient of a Grant-In Aid travel award for overseas field studies in the United States
• Recipient of an ARC Discovery Scholarship
• Recipient of a Business Process Management Group PhD Scholarship
• Recipient of a QUT Tuition Fee Waiver Scholarship
• Recipient of a Research Capacity Building Award
• Recipient of the BearingPoint-Award 2005 for the best European graduate thesis in the field of conceptual modelling
• Recipient of the Mercer-AlumniUM-Master-Award 2004 for one of three best Master graduations of the academic year in the Faculty of Business at the University of Muenster, Germany (out of 567 graduants)