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Dr Felix Brünker has been a junior professor at the Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences since 2024 as part of the Tandem Niederrhein programme (BMBF FH-Personal). At the Faculty of Textile and Clothing Technology, he contributes his expertise in the teaching and research areas of Digital Transformation and Digital Marketing. He previously worked as a team leader at the Chair of Information Systems and Digital Transformation at the University of Potsdam. During his doctorate, Dr Brünker was a fully funded doctoral student of the DFG Research Training Group "User-Centred Social Media" at the University of Duisburg-Essen. During his doctorate, he gained international experience as a visiting researcher at the University of Sydney Business School (Australia) and at the University of Agder (Norway). Prior to his doctorate, he completed his Master's degree in Applied Cognitive and Media Science with a specialisation in Digital Communication and Transformation at the University of Duisburg-Essen.

As part of the Tandem-Niederrhein programme, Dr Brünker cooperates with the company FYNCH-HATTON. He advises the fashion and lifestyle brand on digital communication and transformation strategies. In this context, he combines practical industry experience with academic findings and teaching projects in order to develop practice-orientated solutions for the challenge of digital transformation in the textile and fashion industry.

Dr Brünker also conducts research in the field of human-centred digital transformation. He focuses on the areas of digital working environments and processes, digital marketing, human-computer and AI interaction and the role of identity in these contexts.

His research results have been published in renowned journals such as Journal of Information Technology (JIT), Business & Information Systems Engineering (BISE), Electronic Markets (ELMA), International Journal of Information Management (IJIM), Information Technology & People (ITP) and presented at international conferences such as the European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS) and the Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS).

Dr Felix Brünker teaches Digital Marketing and Digital Transformation at the Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences:

Master

• Global Trade
• Global Marketing
• International Retail
• Retail Marketing
• R&D Projects

Theses (Bachelor & Master)

Dr Brünker supervises theses as part of his research and teaching focus, such as

• Impact of AI-generated content in marketing and corporate communication
• Human-centred integration of conversational agents in organisations
• The relationship between authenticity and AI in the digital age
• Agile transformation of traditional business models in the textile and clothing industry
• The role of the metaverse for (a) digital marketing, (b) e-commerce, (c) digital work
• Digital sustainability communication - the degree between greenwashing and transparency

Further topics can be assigned by personal arrangement.

Dr Felix Brünker is actively involved in the Tandem Niederrhein project, a pioneering initiative of the Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences that specifically prepares young academics for a professorship. The programme offers an ideal environment for combining academic training and practical project work with regional relevance.

Within this programme, Dr Brünker is primarily dedicated to research projects that deal intensively with the digital world of work, AI-based communication systems and the associated changes in organisations. The aim of his work is to link theoretical research and practical applications in order to provide sustainable impetus for research and academic teaching.

In addition to his involvement in the academic context, Dr Brünker works closely with the fashion company FYNCH-HATTON. Here, he actively advises on the strategic development of digital marketing concepts and designs digital workflows. This cooperation makes it possible to translate scientific findings directly into practical innovations for the textile industry.

Tandem Niederrhein supports Dr Brünker in his academic career and provides comprehensive support in the areas of research, teaching and networking. In addition, the project promotes an intensive exchange between science, industry and society in order to develop innovative and practical solutions for the digital transformation.

Project website: Tandem-Niederrhein

Selected publications (peer reviewed)

Brünker, F., Marx, J., Mirbabaie, M., & Stieglitz, S. (2024). Proactive digital workplace transformation: Unpacking identity change mechanisms in remote-first organisations. Journal of Information Technology, 39(4), 668-686. SAGE Publications.

Marx, J., Brünker, F., Mirbabaie, M., & Stieglitz, S. (2024). Digital Activism on Social Media: The Role of Brand Ambassadors and Corporate Reputation Management. In Proceedings of the 57th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

Brünker, F., Hofeditz, L., Basyurt, A. S., & Stieglitz, S. (2022). 'We're all in this toGather'-A Virtual World for Improving Knowledge Exchange and Social Interaction for Digital Work. In Thirtieth European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS 2022).

Mirbabaie, M., Brünker, F., Möllmann, N. R., & Stieglitz, S. (2022). The rise of artificial intelligence-understanding the AI identity threat at the workplace.Electronic Markets, 32(1), 73-99. Springer.

Brünker, F., Marx, J., Mirbabaie, M., & Stieglitz, S. (2022). Oiling the 'Tireless Selling-Machine'-Exploring Requirements for the Deployment of Social Bots in Social Commerce. In Proceedings of the 55th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

Stieglitz, S., Hofeditz, L., Brünker, F., Ehnis, C., Mirbabaie, M., & Ross, B. (2022). Design principles for conversational agents to support Emergency Management Agencies.International Journal of Information Management, 63, 102469, Elsevier.

Mirbabaie, M., Stieglitz, S., & Brünker, F. (2022). Dynamics of convergence behaviour in social media crisis communication-a complexity perspective.Information Technology & People, 35(1), 232-258. Emerald Publishing Limited.

Marx, J., Stieglitz, S., Brünker, F., & Mirbabaie, M. (2023). Home (office) is where your heart is: exploring the identity of the 'corporate nomad' knowledge worker archetype.Business & Information Systems Engineering, 65(3), 293-308. Springer.

Mirbabaie, M., Brünker, F., Wischnewski, M., & Meinert, J. (2021). The development of connective action during social movements on social media.ACM Transactions on Social Computing, 4(1), 1-21. ACM.

Mirbabaie, M., Stieglitz, S., Brünker, F., Hofeditz, L., Ross, B., & Frick, N. R. (2021). Understanding collaboration with virtual assistants-the role of social identity and the extended self.Business & Information Systems Engineering, 63(1), 21-37. Springer.

Brünker, F., Wischnewski, M., Mirbabaie, M., & Meinert, J. (2020). The role of social media during social movements-observations from the #metoo debate on Twitter. In Proceedings of the 53rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

Brachten, F., Brünker, F., Frick, N. R., Ross, B., & Stieglitz, S. (2020). On the ability of virtual agents to decrease cognitive load: an experimental study.Information Systems and e-Business Management, 18(2), 187-207. Springer.

Frick, N. R., Brünker, F., Ross, B., & Stieglitz, S. (2019). The use of artificial intelligence to improve incident management.HMD Practice of Information Systems, 56(2), 357-369.

Stieglitz, S., Mirbabaie, M., Schwenner, L., Marx, J., Lehr, J., & Brünker, F. (2017). Sensemaking and communication roles in social media crisis communication. In 13th International Conference on Information Systems.