EDOC2011 PhD Student Symposium Proceedings

Post-proceedings of the EDOC2011 PhD Student Symposium held in Helsinki 26.8.2011.Peer reviewe

Institutional perspectives on the process of enterprise architecture adoption

Organizations often adopt enterprise architecture (EA) when planning how best to develop their information technology (IT) or businesses, for strategic management, or generally for managing change initiatives. This variety of different uses affects many stakeholders within and between organizations. Because stakeholders have dissimilar backgrounds, positions, assumptions, and activities, they respond differently to changes and the potential problems that emerge from those changes. This situation creates contradictions and conflicts between stakeholders that may further influence project activities and ultimately determine how EA is adopted. In this paper, we examine how institutional pressures influence EA adoption. Based on a qualitative case study of two cases, we show how regulative, normative, and cognitive pressures influence stakeholders’ activities and behaviors during the process of EA adoption. Our contribution thus lies in identifying roles of institutional pressures in different phases during the process of EA adoption and how it changes overtime. The results provide insights into EA adoption and the process of institutionalization, which help to explain emergent challenges in EA adoption.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Enterprise Architecture and Organizational Reform: A Project Debrief

This paper studies on how enterprise architecture (EA) is used as a tool to assist organizational reform. In particular, we examine how institutional factors influencing organization change process through an EA project. We conduct a qualitative case study and use institutional theory as a lens to analyze data from an organization. This analysis offers insights about how exogenous and endogenous factors influence organizational change, and how organizational structures get shaped, diffused, and institutionalized. Our study provides understanding how stakeholders are involved in project activities in multiple levels and phases of the institutionalization process; namely innovation phase, theorization phase, diffusion phase, and institutionalization phase

Enterprise Architecture Implementation Is a Bumpy Ride: A Case Study in the Norwegian Public Sector

Enterprise architecture (EA) is a widespread approach for the development of new digital solutions in a planned and controlled way for large and complex organisations. EA is also viewed as a prerequisite for the digitalisation of the public sector. However, public sector organisations struggle to implement EA programmes, and research has demonstrated that organisational and managerial issues are critical obstacles to EA implementation. This study aims to increase our understanding of EA implementation in the public sector by investigating the central challenges for EA initiatives and to trace the progress of current EA initiatives in the Norwegian public sector. An additional goal is to disclose some ways to improve the situation. We conducted three interpretive case studies in the hospital, higher education, and labour and welfare sectors. We have identified 28 challenges to the EA initiatives. We find that organisational and technical complexities, as well as a limited understanding of EA and lack of formal EA governance mechanisms, are significant obstacles. Among others, the lack of understanding of EA and its methodology will lead to problems with anchoring the EA approach in the organisation and facilitating the necessary EA arrangements to induce the promised benefits of EA, which are necessary requirements to establish the EA initiative’s legitimacy and foster the organisation’s willingness to implement change. Our study provides four lessons learned for planning and implementing EA initiatives, as follows: #1. It is advisable to take small steps. #2. The use of external consultants should be carefully considered. #3. Formal architectural governance mechanisms are important for legitimacy and enforced use. #4. Executive commitment and understanding of EA are crucial for achieving a sustainable EA initiative. Finally, we find a common evolution of the EA initiatives through the phases of optimism, resistance, decline and finally, reconsolidation of the most persistent ones.publishedVersio

Institutional perspective on introducing enterprise architecture : The case of the Norwegian hospital sector

Paper I, II, and III are not available as a part of the dissertation due to the copyright.The findings from this thesis point to the incongruence between the characteristics of EA and the healthcare domain as specific tensions among the EA logic and different professional logics as a source of deviation. The incongruence comes from the long-term plan-driven EA approach versus healthcare traditions and needs for ad-hoc initiatives. Other themes stem from the EA logic of process standardisation, which poses challenges in gaining acceptance and trust that the processes dinscribe appropriate clinical knowledge and provide support for local variations. Moreover, the EA vision of data integration across organisational units and across IS has implications for concerns about privacy and protection of sensitive data, but this can collide with the healthcare view on patient safety and the need for mission-critical data. This dissertation makes several contributions to research and practice. First, it augments the EA research stream by offering rich insights and specific implications related to challenges of EA institutionalisation in healthcare. A description of the enterprise architects’ logics and the EA logic supplements the EA knowledge base. Likewise, it presents a model of a predicted evolution of the EA initiatives through the phases of optimism, resistance, decline and finally, reconsolidation of the most persistent ones, unless firm mandates are established from the start. Furthermore, the study provides a model that illustrates how coexisting institutional logics maintain their distinct character while allowing compromises that shape EA operationalisation. The model shows a set of scenarios for settling tensions in project decisions. In these scenarios, EA is foregrounded, blended with other available institutional logics or suppressed. Second, this dissertation contributes to an enhanced theoretical and empirical understanding of EA institutionalisation, where regulative, normative and culturalcognitive elements create and maintain EA as an institution, and unsurprisingly, the organisational response impedes the institutionalisation process. The organisational response can be explained by selective activated institutional logics among the actors. However, with targeted institutional work from the actors that want EA to be institutionalised, the process can be reinforced. This thesis also offers some practical suggestions at the national policy level. First, financial arrangements should be assessed to encourage broader involvement from the sub-organisations. Second, through active ownership, they can address the need for enhanced EA understanding and should secure the education of the actors, not the least at the executive level, together with the targeted hires. Furthermore, the need for organisational changes related to EA is under-communicated. The thesis also makes practical suggestions to deal with the challenges, the incongruence and the consequent tensions, mainly by finding solutions that balance between the institutional logics of EA and of healthcare.publishedVersio

The Mechanics of Enterprise Architecture Principles

Inspired by the city planning metaphor, enterprise architecture (EA) has gained considerable attention from academia and industry for systematically planning an IT landscape. Since EA is a relatively young discipline, a great deal of its work focuses on architecture representations (descriptive EA) that conceptualize the different architecture layers, their components, and relationships. Beside architecture representations, EA should comprise principles that guide architecture design and evolution toward predefined value and outcomes (prescriptive EA). However, research on EA principles is still very limited. Notwithstanding the increasing consensus regarding EA principles’ role and definition, the limited publications neither discuss what can be considered suitable principles, nor explain how they can be turned into effective means to achieve expected EA outcomes. This study seeks to strengthen EA’s extant theoretical core by investigating EA principles through a mixed methods research design comprising a literature review, an expert study, and three case studies. The first contribution of this study is that it sheds light on the ambiguous interpretation of EA principles in extant research by ontologically distinguishing between principles and nonprinciples, as well as deriving a set of suitable EA (meta-)principles. The second contribution connects the nascent academic discourse on EA principles to studies on EA value and outcomes. This study conceptualizes the “mechanics” of EA principles as a value-creation process, where EA principles shape the architecture design and guide its evolution and thereby realize EA outcomes. Consequently, this study brings EA’s underserved, prescriptive aspect to the fore and helps enrich its theoretical foundations

IT Leadership in Transition - The Impact of Digitalization on Finnish Organizations

Digitalization is transforming business models across industries. As information technology (IT) is becoming embedded in products and services, IT leadership has an increasingly dualistic role in supporting the organization and also serving its customers' changing needs. The ACIO research program studied how Finnish industry and public sector organizations utilize information technology in developing and managing critical business capabilities. The focus was on understanding and analyzing contemporary approaches to IT leadership. This research report summarizes some of the key research findings, providing scholars and practitioners with insights into and understanding of digitalization and changes in IT leadership in Finnish informationintensive organizations

ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks: a literature review

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation is a complex and vibrant process, one that involves a combination of technological and organizational interactions. Often an ERP implementation project is the single largest IT project that an organization has ever launched and requires a mutual fit of system and organization. Also the concept of an ERP implementation supporting business processes across many different departments is not a generic, rigid and uniform concept and depends on variety of factors. As a result, the issues addressing the ERP implementation process have been one of the major concerns in industry. Therefore ERP implementation receives attention from practitioners and scholars and both, business as well as academic literature is abundant and not always very conclusive or coherent. However, research on ERP systems so far has been mainly focused on diffusion, use and impact issues. Less attention has been given to the methods used during the configuration and the implementation of ERP systems, even though they are commonly used in practice, they still remain largely unexplored and undocumented in Information Systems research. So, the academic relevance of this research is the contribution to the existing body of scientific knowledge. An annotated brief literature review is done in order to evaluate the current state of the existing academic literature. The purpose is to present a systematic overview of relevant ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks as a desire for achieving a better taxonomy of ERP implementation methodologies. This paper is useful to researchers who are interested in ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks. Results will serve as an input for a classification of the existing ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks. Also, this paper aims also at the professional ERP community involved in the process of ERP implementation by promoting a better understanding of ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks, its variety and history

Enterprise reference architectures for higher education institutions: Analysis, comparison and practical uses

Enterprise Architecture (EA) is currently accepted as one on the major instruments for enabling organisations in their transformation processes to achieve business-technology alignment. Despite that over the last years EA has been successfully adopted in many industries, Higher Education still represents one of the sectors with lower levels of adoption and maturity of EA practices. The present thesis puts the emphasis particularly on the study Enterprise Reference Architectures (ERAs), as a particular type of EA artefact, in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). After formally clarifying the concept of ERAs and giving a panoramic view of the current state-of-the-art of existing HEI-oriented ERAs, the thesis proposes an artefact framework build through a Design Science Research (DSR) approach aimed to facilitate practitioners their (re-)use or application in their own real practical settings. The purpose of the constructed artefact is to support practitioners when conducting the necessary adjustments to exiting HEI-oriented ERAs in order to be successfully applied for their specific needs.La Arquitectura Empresarial (AE) es actualmente reconocida como una disciplina que permite configurar procesos de trasformación organizativa a objeto de alinear el negocio con la tecnología. A pesar de que en los últimos años la AE se ha ido adoptando progresivamente de forma exitosa en diversas industrias, la educación superior representa todavía hoy en día uno de los sectores con menores niveles de adopción y de madurez en lo que se refiere a las prácticas de AE. La presente tesis hace especial hincapié en el estudio de las Arquitecturas de Referencia Empresariales (AREs), entendidas como un artefacto específico de AE, en Instituciones de Educación Superior (IES). Así, después de clarificar formalmente el concepto de ARE y de ofrecer una visión panorámica del estado del arte relativo a las AREs para IES existentes, la tesis propone un framework de trabajo construido a través de un enfoque de investigación basado en la Ciencia del diseño destinado a facilitar su (re-)utilización o aplicación práctica en dominios de trabajo reales. El objetivo del artefacto es proporcionar soporte práctico a los profesionales para realizar los ajustes necesarios a las AREs para IES existentes para que puedan aplicarlas con éxito a sus necesidades específicas.L'Arquitectura Empresarial (AE) és actualment reconeguda com una disciplina que permet configurar processos de transformació organitzatius a fi d'alinear el negoci amb la tecnologia. Tot i que en els darrers anys l'AE s'ha anat adoptant progressivament amb èxit en diverses indústries, l'educació superior representa encara avui dia un dels sectors amb menors nivells d'adopció i de maduresa pel que fa a pràctiques d'AE. Aquesta tesi posa especial èmfasi en l'estudi de les Arquitectures de Referència Empresarials (AREs), enteses com un artefacte concret d'AE, a Institucions d'Educació Superior (IES). Així, després d'aclarir formalment el concepte d'ARE i oferir una visió panoràmica de l'estat de l'art relatiu a les ARE per a IES existents, la tesi proposa un framework de treball construït a través d'un enfocament de recerca basat en la ciència del disseny destinat a facilitar-ne la seva (re-)utilització o aplicació pràctica en dominis de treball reals. L'objectiu de l'artefacte és proporcionar suport pràctic als professionals per realitzar els ajustaments necessaris a les AREs per a IES existents de forma que les puguin aplicar amb èxit a les seves necessitats específiques.Tecnologies de la informació i de xarxe

Kokonaisarkkitehtuuri julkisen sektorin digitalisaatiossa

Digitalization has been shaping our society already for decades. However, despite the rapid development of new technologies, the change from paper-based systems and processes in the public sector has been slow and somewhat painful. These challenges often relate to the difficulties in institutional restructuring, process redesign and inter-organizational collaboration. Enterprise architecture, on the other hand, aims to support the issues of alignment and integration, between the information systems and business processes. In this thesis digitalization and enterprise architecture are studied in public sector context. Also, the conceptual dimensions of both digitalization and enterprise architecture are investigated based on existing literature. It appeared that the adoption of digital opportunities in a public sector organization can be either reinforcing or transformational. The latter one, however, requires major effort throughout the organization to support horizontal integration in order to enable a customer-oriented organization. Also, it was found out that enterprise architecture, rather than a single concept, constitutes a number of dimensions that steer its value-creation logic as well as adoption in an organization. Most importantly, enterprise architecture can be characterized as the realized organizing logic of the ICT and processes or as a meta process consisting of methods and artefacts that support decision making in order to build a such realized organizing logic. This study concludes that in order to adopt digital transformation in the case organization, enterprise architecture should a) be exploited to create a common architectural vision of the enterprise and b) provide understanding of the current organization to move towards the vision. Also, enterprise architecture should support the sense-making of the novel technological developments and the adoption of them in the case organization. Finally, enterprise architecture should act both as a structure and a guiding vision for implementing the digital opportunities.Digitalisaatio on muovannut yhteiskuntaamme jo vuosikymmenten ajan. Uusien teknologioiden nopeasta kehitystahdista huolimatta muutos paperipohjaisista järjestelmistä ja prosesseista on ollut julkisella sektorilla hidasta ja jokseenkin kivuliasta. Haasteet liittyvät usein muutoksiin organisaatioissa ja prosesseissa, sekä organisaatioidenväliseen yhteistyöhön. Kokonaisarkkitehtuuri pyrkii tukemaan organisaatioita järjestelmien ja prosessien yhteensovittamisessa sekä integroinnissa. Tässä työssä tutkitaan kokonaisarkkitehtuuria ja digitalisaatiota julkisella sektorilla. Toisaalta tutkimuksen kohteena on myös kokonaisarkkitehtuurin ja digitalisaation käsitteellinen sisältö ja ulottuvuudet olemassa olevan kirjallisuuden perusteella. Työn perusteella voidaan todeta, että digitalisaatiota voidaan omaksua organisaatiossa joko olemassa olevia prosesseja vahvistavalla tai muuttavalla tavalla. Jälkimmäinen edellyttää kuitenkin koko organisaatiota koskettavia toimenpiteitä poikittaisen integraation ja edelleen asiakaslähtöisen organisaation mahdollistamiseksi. Toisaalta, kokonaisarkkitehtuuri näyttää yhden käsitteen sijaan kattavan joukon eri ulottuvuuksia, jotka vaikuttavat sen arvonluonnin logiikkaan sekä omaksumiseen. Ennen kaikkea kokonaisarkkitehtuuri voidaan käsittää realisoituneeksi toimintaprosessien ja tietojärjestelmien väliseksi rakenteeksi, tai vaihtoehtoisesti tällaisen rakenteen syntyä ohjaavaksi metaprosessiksi. Työn tuloksena selvisi, että prosesseja muuttavan digitalisaation omaksumiseen kohdeorganisaation kokonaisarkkitehtuurin tulisi luoda yhteinen visio tavoitearkkitehtuurista sekä tarjota ymmärrystä organisaation nykytilasta nyky- ja tavoitetilan välisen eron hahmottamiseksi. Lisäksi kokonaisarkkitehtuurin pitäisi tukea uusien digitalisaation myötä syntyvien teknologisten mahdollisuuksien tunnistamisessa sekä hyödyntämisessä. Laajemmin, kokonaisarkkitehtuurin tulisi toimia sekä rakenteena että ohjaavana visiona digitalisaation tuomien uusien mahdollisuuksien hyödyntämisessä