Options
Understanding Institutional Mechanisms of Controlling Information Systems Architecture Complexity: A Simulation-based Research
Type
fundamental research project
Start Date
01 February 2017
End Date
31 March 2018
Status
completed
Keywords
complexity
enterprise architecture
emergent behaviour
agent-based modelling
simulation experiments
Description
Over the past decades, we have witnessed an enormous growth of investments in information systems (IS) in organizations. On one hand, constant investments in IS have had a significant impact on organizations’ performance. On the other hand, these investments resulted in a significant complexity of the corporate IS architecture (i.e., the organization’s fundamental IS components, their inter-relationships, and principles governing their design and evolution), mainly due to allocating project ownerships and IS design decision authorities to local units. This manifests in a large and ever-growing number of hete¬rogeneous IS, which are costly to maintain, tightly interrelated, and which lack flexibility with regard to business changes.
With the constantly increasing number of IS, organizations lose control of their corporate IS architecture’s evolution. This encouraged scholars and practitioners to propagate the concept of enterprise architecture management (EAM) for systematically aligning local IS investments with enterprise-wide objectives. Complementary to EAM’s traditional top-down driven approach to control the complexity of IS architectures, recent discussions propose to focus on the local actors and the way they take actual design decisions in IS change projects. However, IS and the complexity of their architecture may not be misconceived as isolated and purely technical phenomena. Instead, IS architecture complexity emerges in a complex socio-technical (ST) system, caused by the diverse interactions among its social and technical components. Therefore, in order to understand how local design decisions are taken in a mutually interactive ST system, how these local decisions add up to the overall IS architecture complexity, and how IS architecture complexity can be controlled, we opt for ST, complex adaptive systems (CAS), and institutional theory as theoretical lenses. While ST and CAS conceptualize the dyadic interplay among social and technical components as well as the non-linear and emergent behaviour of IS architecture complexity, institutional theory postulates control mechanisms to constrain IS architecture’s emergent behaviour.
Such studies, however, are hardly feasible through research methods such as case studies or surveys, since these methods do not allow to isolate and vary the potentially large number of parameters of the respective ST system. Simulation experiments enable researchers to conduct such studies, as they allow for a variation of parameters in a controlled environment, while producing massive amounts of data that, for instance, enable researchers to capture non-linear relations with statistical techniques. Agent-based simulation techniques particularly fit our perspective, as the conceptual model of such simulations focusses on local decision makers. Therefore, through combining a sound theoretical basis with a simulation-based research method, the contribution of this study is twofold. First, this study goes beyond existing static worldviews and deterministic prescriptions to corporate IS architecture through demonstrating its dynamic, emergent behaviour and its inherent complexity. Second, this study provides insights on the effects of institutional mechanisms on the behaviour and control of corporate IS architecture’s complexity.
This project is a pre-study for an ambitious project application, to be submitted for basic research funding.
With the constantly increasing number of IS, organizations lose control of their corporate IS architecture’s evolution. This encouraged scholars and practitioners to propagate the concept of enterprise architecture management (EAM) for systematically aligning local IS investments with enterprise-wide objectives. Complementary to EAM’s traditional top-down driven approach to control the complexity of IS architectures, recent discussions propose to focus on the local actors and the way they take actual design decisions in IS change projects. However, IS and the complexity of their architecture may not be misconceived as isolated and purely technical phenomena. Instead, IS architecture complexity emerges in a complex socio-technical (ST) system, caused by the diverse interactions among its social and technical components. Therefore, in order to understand how local design decisions are taken in a mutually interactive ST system, how these local decisions add up to the overall IS architecture complexity, and how IS architecture complexity can be controlled, we opt for ST, complex adaptive systems (CAS), and institutional theory as theoretical lenses. While ST and CAS conceptualize the dyadic interplay among social and technical components as well as the non-linear and emergent behaviour of IS architecture complexity, institutional theory postulates control mechanisms to constrain IS architecture’s emergent behaviour.
Such studies, however, are hardly feasible through research methods such as case studies or surveys, since these methods do not allow to isolate and vary the potentially large number of parameters of the respective ST system. Simulation experiments enable researchers to conduct such studies, as they allow for a variation of parameters in a controlled environment, while producing massive amounts of data that, for instance, enable researchers to capture non-linear relations with statistical techniques. Agent-based simulation techniques particularly fit our perspective, as the conceptual model of such simulations focusses on local decision makers. Therefore, through combining a sound theoretical basis with a simulation-based research method, the contribution of this study is twofold. First, this study goes beyond existing static worldviews and deterministic prescriptions to corporate IS architecture through demonstrating its dynamic, emergent behaviour and its inherent complexity. Second, this study provides insights on the effects of institutional mechanisms on the behaviour and control of corporate IS architecture’s complexity.
This project is a pre-study for an ambitious project application, to be submitted for basic research funding.
Leader contributor(s)
Member contributor(s)
Funder(s)
Range
Institute/School
Range (De)
Institut/School
Division(s)
Eprints ID
247311
Reference Number
2200183
4 results
Now showing
1 - 4 of 4
-
PublicationKomplexität von IT-Landschaften(Gabler/GWV-Fachverl., 2017-04)
;Aleatrati Khosroshahi, PouyaVolkert, StefanType: journal articleJournal: Wirtschaftsinformatik & Management : WuMVolume: 9Issue: 2 -
PublicationKey Performance Indicators for a Capability-Based Application Portfolio Management( 2017-10)
;Aleatrati Khosroshahi, Pouya ;Yilmaz, Fatih ;Matthes, FlorianIn this paper, we define three key performance indicators (KPI) to measure the health of application portfolios (AP) and use the business capability map (BCM) as a visualization lens. Based on a literature review of AP management and BCM practices, we conduct a case study with a large European automotive company to develop three KPIs related to AP complexity, AP quality, and AP impact. The application of the KPIs is illustrated for the BCM of our case study partner and evaluated by conducting expert interviews with ten enterprise architecture experts of the company. Our results provide further insights on AP management practices that are enabled by using the BCM as a holistic visualization tool.Type: conference paperScopus© Citations 2 -
PublicationSimulation-Based Research in Information Systems: Epistemic Implications and a Review of the Status QuoSimulations provide a useful methodological approach for studying the behavior of complex socio-technical information systems (IS), in which humans and IT artifacts interact to process information. However, the use of simulations is relatively new in IS research and the current presence and impact of simulation-based studies is still limited. Furthermore, simulation-based research is quite different from other approaches, making it difficult to position and evaluate it adequately. Therefore, this paper first analyses the epistemic particularities of simulation-based IS research. Based on this analysis, a structured literature review of the status quo of simulation-based IS research was conducted, to understand how IS scholars currently employ simulation. A comparison of the epistemic particularities of simulation-based research with its status quo in IS literature allows to critically examine epistemic inferences in the respective research process. The results provide guidance for prospective simulation-based IS research through discussing the theory-based derivation of simulation models, as well as different simulation techniques, validation techniques, and simulation uses.Type: journal articleJournal: Business & information systems engineering : BISEVolume: 61Issue: 4
Scopus© Citations 39 -
PublicationThe Evolution of Information Systems Architecture: An Agent-Based Simulation Model(Management Information Research Center; University of Minnesota, 2020-03)Understanding how information systems (IS) architecture evolves and what outcomes can be expected from the evolution of IS architecture presents a considerable challenge for both research and practice. The evolution of IS architecture is marked by management’s efforts to keep local and short-term IS investments in line with enterprise-wide and long-term objectives, so they often employ coercive mechanisms to enforce enterprise-wide considerations on local actors. However, an organization is shaped by a multitude of heterogeneous local actors’ actions that pursue their own, sometimes conflicting, goals, norms, and values. This study offers a theory-informed simulation model that explores how IS architecture evolves and with what outcomes in various types of organizations. The simulation model is informed by institutional theory to capture various types of organizations that are characterized by different combinations of coercive, normative, and mimetic pressures, and by complex adaptive systems theory to capture the emergent character of IS architecture’s evolution. First, we outline the insights from simulation experiments. Then, building on the simulation model and theoretical insights, we discuss implications for both research and practice.Type: journal articleJournal: MIS Quarterly: Management Information Systems Quarterly (MISQ)Volume: 44Issue: 1
Scopus© Citations 60