prof.dr.ir. (Eric) HWGM van Heck

Biography

Eric van Heck is Professor of Information Management and Markets, Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM).

His research is at the interface of business and technology and concentrates on information advantage for circular and digital business.

His work combines insights from different academic  fields, such as economics, management science, information systems, and computer science, and helps to tackle complex business and societal challenges, such as the circular and digital transformation. He works on topics such as auction markets, AI and data science & analytics, circular and digital business & ecosystems, and digital work.

He is a Fellow of the Logistics and Information Systems (LIS) research program at the Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM) and he helped to initiate the Erasmus Center for Future Energy Business (ECFEB), the Erasmus Center for Data Analytics (ECDA), the master programs in Business Information Management (BIM) and in Business Analytics and Management (BAM).

Research is carried out in collaboration with innovative companies and universities in Brazil, China, Europe, Indonesia, and USA. He led the Artificial Intelligence in the Floriculture Chain - iFlow project (2015 - 2020) in collaboration with Royal FloraHolland, Zentoo, and Wageningen University, and sponsored by Topsector Horticulture and Starting Materials.

Professor Eric van Heck teaches the elective master course Circular and Digital Business Design (BMME154) in the BIM master program and the executive courses "Leading Transformation in the Digital Economy" in the ECGL-RSM Advanced Leadership Program (Jakarta, Indonesia) and modules in the RSM open executive courses on "Leadership Challenges with Data Analytics" and "Digital Leadership and Change".

He is the author of Technology Meets Flowers: Unlocking the Circular and Digital Economy (Springer Nature, 2021) and its Dutch translation Technologie en Tulpen: Circulaire en digitale innovatie in de bloemensector (Mediawerf, 2022).

Articles have appeared in academic journals such as Information Systems Research, Journal of Information Technology, Management Science, and MIS Quarterly and in business-oriented journals such as California Management Review, Harvard Business Review, and MISQ Executive.

His work received nominations and awards such as the ERIM Book Award 2004, the ERIM Impact Award 2010, the Literati Network Award for Excellence 2012, the Best Paper Award Nominee at CIST 2012 and 2013, the AIS Award for Best Conference Paper in IS Education 2015, and the Best Paper Award Nominee at ICIS 2017. He received the AIS Sandra Slaughter Service Award, the AIS Technology Challenge Award, and the AIS Impact Award in 2020 and the INFORMS Information Systems Society Design Science Award in 2021. The 2020 AIS Impact award and the 2021 INFORMS Design Science Award were received for joint research impact of the iFlow project together with Yixin Lu, May Truong, Alok Gupta, and Wolf Ketter.

Actually, Professor Eric van Heck is an active member of the Association of Information Systems (AIS) community. He was the program co-chair of ECIS 2013 in Utrecht and of ECIS 2020 - the First Virtual Conference of AIS. He was the track co-chair of the Economics and IS track at ICIS 2009 in Phoenix, ECIS 2011 in Helsinki, and ICIS 2012 in Orlando, and the track co-chair of the General IS track at ECIS 2019 in Stockholm. He was the chairman of the doctoral consortium at ECIS 2008 in Galway, and faculty member of the doctoral consortium at ECIS 2007 in St.Gallen and ICIS 2011 in Shanghai, and member of the 2014 AIS nomination committee.

His former roles include that of Academic Director of the Business Information Management (BIM) MSc. program, ERIM's Director of Doctoral Education, Section Leader of the BIM Section, and Chairman of the Department of Technology & Operations Management.

He has been a Visiting Student at Cornell University (Ithaca, USA), twice a Visiting Scholar at New York University (New York City, USA), a Visiting Scholar at the MIT Center for Information Systems Research (CISR) (Cambridge, USA), and a Visiting Fellow at the University of Jyväskylä (Jyväskylä, Finland). He has been a Visiting Professor at the Aalto University School of Business (Helsinki, Finland), at the Ludwig-Maximilians University (Munich, Germany), and at the Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV) School of Business Administration in São Paulo (Brazil).

He worked as a Software Programmer and System Analyst at Cap Gemini Nederland, as an Assistant Professor at Wageningen University, and as a Research Fellow at the Center for Economic Research (CentER) at Tilburg University. 

He earned a BSc. degree (Land and Water Use), a MSc.degree (Majors in Land and Water Use and in Information Management, and Minors in Operations Research and in Agricultural Economics), and a PhD. degree (Information Systems) from Wageningen University.