A Design Theory for Architectural Coordination of Enterprise Transformations (ACET)
Type
fundamental research project
Start Date
August 1, 2011
End Date
October 31, 2014
Acronym
ACET
Status
completed
Keywords
Enterprise Transformation
Enterprise Architecture
Coordination of Transformation
Design Theory
Description
Present day enterprises are confronted with a continuously changing environment. These changes are due to globalisation, new technologies, regulations, novel business models, etc. Enterprises therefore need to transform themselves regularly to meet these new challenges, while senior management of these enterprises needs to make conscious decisions about the future design of "their" enterprise and the path to "get there". Such transformations may range from changes in value propositions and business processes, via changes to the information systems used to support the business processes, to changes of the underlying IT infrastructures. Since most real world transformations are large, they need to be divided into smaller programs and projects. This raises the need for a coordination mechanism between smaller programs and projects to safeguard that all contribute towards the strategic goals set for the transformation as a whole.
Traditional project/programme management does not provide such coordination, as it focuses on typical project parameters such as budgets, resource use, deadlines, etc. As a result, projects are "invited" to conduct local, project specific optimizations. As a consequence, the results of these projects may actually not contribute to (or even hamper) the overall transformation goals. It has been the mission of the field of enterprise architecture to provide such coordination mechanisms. Ample research has been conducted on different elements of enterprise architecture, such as: frameworks, modelling languages, model analysis, etc. Each of these elements is a valuable component to set up an effective coordination mechanism for enterprise transformations. However, how to combine these elements into an effective method support for architectural coordination of transformations, has not received much research attention yet.
The challenge, which the ACET project aims to meet, is the development of a theoretically grounded methodology that is an effective means for architectural coordination of enterprise transformations. Due to the diversity of contexts and goals in enterprise transformation, this methodology needs to be systematically adaptable to the situation at hand, e.g. industry, size of the company, or dominant organizational culture. In doing so, the ACET project will primarily focus on the so-called Business-to-IT stack. In other words, the layered series of aspects: business strategy, business processes, information processing, and the underlying IT infrastructure.
Traditional project/programme management does not provide such coordination, as it focuses on typical project parameters such as budgets, resource use, deadlines, etc. As a result, projects are "invited" to conduct local, project specific optimizations. As a consequence, the results of these projects may actually not contribute to (or even hamper) the overall transformation goals. It has been the mission of the field of enterprise architecture to provide such coordination mechanisms. Ample research has been conducted on different elements of enterprise architecture, such as: frameworks, modelling languages, model analysis, etc. Each of these elements is a valuable component to set up an effective coordination mechanism for enterprise transformations. However, how to combine these elements into an effective method support for architectural coordination of transformations, has not received much research attention yet.
The challenge, which the ACET project aims to meet, is the development of a theoretically grounded methodology that is an effective means for architectural coordination of enterprise transformations. Due to the diversity of contexts and goals in enterprise transformation, this methodology needs to be systematically adaptable to the situation at hand, e.g. industry, size of the company, or dominant organizational culture. In doing so, the ACET project will primarily focus on the so-called Business-to-IT stack. In other words, the layered series of aspects: business strategy, business processes, information processing, and the underlying IT infrastructure.
Leader contributor(s)
Member contributor(s)
Partner(s)
CRP - Henri Tudor, Luxemburg
Funder
Topic(s)
Enterprise Transformation
Enterprise Architecture
Coordination of Transformation
Design Theory
Method(s)
Design Science Research
Range
HSG Internal
Range (De)
HSG Intern
Division(s)
Eprints ID
206444
Funding code
100014E-136104
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Item type:Publication, Facilitating Enterprise Transformation Through Legitimacy - An Institutional Perspective(Gito-Verl., 2012-02-29); ; - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Publication, Theory Foundations for Enterprise Architecture Management: Insights from Infrastructure-Related Economics(2012-05-30); ; Enterprise Architecture Management (EAM) is a highly relevant topic in organizational practice and design science research. However, the constant need for investigating EAM's benefits and for justifying its costs has not satisfactorily been dealt with. Traditional business case based justifications fall short in considering the cross-project, cross-unit, and enterprise wide character of EAM. Because of EAM's infrastructure-like nature, we survey economic theory for approaches explaining cost and benefit effects of EAM and to discuss their potential to derive implications for EAM design. The paper is a first attempt to bring together different bodies of knowledge in two diverse fields (IS and economics). Findings are theories that explain why infrastructure-like concepts are necessary and further hints for in-depth analysis that is supposed to lead to meaningful insights for EAM design. Based on the discussed economic theories, we compile a research agenda in the area of infrastructure-like systems.Type:conference paper - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Publication, Corporate Intelligence: Architekturunterstützung von Transformationen(2013-11-07)Type:presentation - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Publication, Towards a Conceptualization of Architectural Support for Enterprise TransformationEnterprise architecture management (EAM) is supposed to be a helpful means to support the management of enterprise transformations, i.e., fundamental changes. However, in current corporate practice, there seems to be no regular application of EAM as leading authority or support service for enterprise transformation. Thus, we examine, which activities need to be conducted in order to manage enterprise transformation. We further identify the needed information inputs for these activities. Based on this foundation, we analyze, which of the information inputs can be provided by EAM. We identify eight major activity areas of enterprise transformation management (ETM). We further identify information inputs that these ETM activities need. Additionally, we identify content elements that EAM can provide by analyzing EAM meta models. Comparing the demand by ETM and the supply by EAM shows that EAM in general provides valuable inputs to the ETM activities but shows weaknesses when it comes to information about individual actors or environmental information. ETM information needs that are strongly supported are e.g. organizational goals, roles and actors. ETM information needs that are weakly supported are e.g. organizational culture, resistances or organizational rituals.Type:conference paper - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Publication, - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Publication, Architectural Support of Enterprise Transformations: Insights from Corporate Practice(Universität Paderborn, 2014-02-26); ; ; Kundisch, DennisEnterprise architecture management (EAM) is considered to be a means to contribute to fundamental change (enterprise transformations) in organizations. Based on qualitative interview data, we investigate how EAM contributes to meeting the information needs of transformation managers during an enterprise transformation (ET). We identify the type of information EAM can provide to ET management. We further identify the activities conducted during ETs that foster information needs. Our results differentiate between information that EAM can provide, can partially provide, or cannot provide, to an ET effort.Type:conference paper - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Publication, - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Publication, An Institutional Framework for Analyzing Organizational Responses to the Establishment of Architectural TransformationThe need for constant transformation of enterprises is omnipresent. A discipline that has been proposed to support the coordination of enterprise transformation is Enterprise Architecture Management (EAM) which has grown to a mature discipline in academia and practice. However, it can be observed in practice that it still is a challenge to introduce such an architectural coordination approach for supporting enterprise transformation. This may be due to the reason that the institutional context of EAM is only little understood, that is, the interplay between the pressures EAM exerts on the organisation and the response strategies of this organisation. The paper reviews existing work on institutional theory and confirms by means of a case study that the institutional factors of cause, constituents, content, control, and context are not only relevant for EAM but may be consistently linked to response strategies of acquiesce, compromise, avoid, defy, and manipulate. Moreover the case study implies to add additional institutional factors for EAM, namely trust and participation.Type:conference paper - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Publication,
