The Association for Information Systems recognized Dr. Rolf Wigand, professor emeritus of information science, business information systems, and management at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, with the Distinguished Member Cum Laude award Dec. 15, 2019, at the association’s annual conference in Munich, Germany.

Wigand is a founding and charter member of the Association for Information Systems (AIS), an international, nonprofit professional association for the advancement, promotion, and study of information systems that was founded in 1994. The appointment as a Distinguished Member Cum Laude is intended to honor his research achievements and his commitment to the international information systems community.

He received the award “for supporting the association by maintaining continuous membership, for sharing your skills and talents by serving in leadership roles within the association, and for advancing the field of information systems research through AIS and AIS-affiliated journals in various editorial positions,” said Dr. Helle Zinner Henriksen, AIS vice president of membership and professor of digitization at the Copenhagen Business School in Denmark.

At UA Little Rock, Wigand worked as the Maulden-Entergy chair and distinguished professor of information science, business information systems, and management for 13 years until his retirement in 2015. He was the past director of the graduate program in information management and founding director of the Center for Digital Commerce, both at Syracuse University. He is currently a faculty member with the Emeritus College at Arizona State University.

His research interests lie at the intersection of information and communication technology and business and societal issues, the role of newer information technologies and their impact on organizations and society, as well as their strategic alignment within business and industry.

Wigand authored 19 books and more than 500 articles and book chapters. His 1997 book,“Information, Organization and Management: Expanding Markets and Corporate Boundaries” with Wiley & Sons, is listed among the “75 Best Management Books of All Time” in the Handelsblatt Management Bibliothek rankings.