I was born in Heerlen, The Netherlands, in 1961. At the age of 10 my family moved to Bemelen, a tiny village near the city of Maastricht. In 1979 I passed my final high school exams at the Jeanne d'Arc College in Maastricht. After spending two years at the University of Nijmegen, I studied Business Informatics at the HEAO in Sittard where I graduated with honors (cum laude) in 1985.
Since 1985, I am employed at the School of Business and Economics at the University of Maastricht. From 1985 until 1987 I was an IT research assistant and from 1987 until 1991 I spend half my time in IT support and half my time as a researcher particularly in projects relating to the use of IT in educational settings. After 1991, I worked for the department of Accountancy and Auditing as an assistant professor. My dissertation, which treats the subject of the economic consequences of regulation of annual financial reporting for small and medium enterprises, was finished in January 1996. As of 1997, I returned to my original subject field as an associate professor of Information management at the department of Accounting and Information Management.

From 1992 until 2003 I was employed part-time at the Dutch Open University in Heerlen, where I was appointed as a Professor of Business Economics in 2001.

I conduct research in the field of Information Management and I have been involved in several research projects of the Maastricht Accounting and Auditing Research Center (MARC). I am a member of the program committee for the European Conference on Accounting Information Systems (ECAIS). Also, I have been active as a reviewer for several conferences and journals (ECIS, ICIS, AGITM, EJIS). Finally, I am a member of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the Association of Information Systems (AIS).

Besides conducting research I also teach courses, especially in the field of Information Management and Infonomics.

Finally, I am active in a variety of management activities. I have been a member of the faculty council (faculteitsraad) and from 1999-2003 I was the chairman of the ICT platform of the School of Business and Economics. Currently, I am vice-chair of the AIM department, I am a member of the Board of Appeal at Maastricht University and I am a member of the board of admission for the master of science programs in International Business and Infonomics. In 2007, Harold Hassink and I started to organize and coordinate the departmental life-long learning program for controllers and accountants.

I have been married to Anita since 1986. She works at the UWV, a Dutch semi-governmental institute that handles social security funds. She is a big fan of shopping (like many women she especially seems to like shoes). We have a son named Tim who is a good swimmer and who totally depends on his computer, his ITouch and his cell phone. At the right you can see the both of us in 'formal dress' for the Christmas dinner in 2007. Tim is 19 now and he started studying as a freshman at Maastricht University in 2011. He also has a working career as a part-time grocery clerk at the local Albert Hein supermarket. Recently he got promoted to the position of warehouse assistant and he also earned a permanent contract.

My hobby's are duration sports (running, walking, biking), music (see the Botte Bijl website - in Dutch), photography (see my site with photoshoots of places in Limburg), computer games (particularly MMORPG's) and SF-literature. Fantasy is the genre I like best. Obviously, within this genre, the Lord of the Rings by Tolkien is one of my favorites but also Jack Vance, Roger Zelazny (the Amber series) and Ursula Le Guin (the Earthsea saga) are among my favorite authors.

This page has been updated on 14-10-11.