A FRAMEWORK FOR THE STRATEGIC POSITIONING OF INTRA-COMPANY ICT RESEARCH ORGANIZATIONS

By the early twentieth century, Schumpeter had already stressed the importance of innovation for a sustainable development of enterprises. Innovation is especially important for information and com-munication technology (ICT) companies as their business model is based on rapidly changing tech-nology. They therefore often profit from innovation developed in intra-company research organiza-tions. However, ICT research organisations often face a special challenge: the integration of research results into existing ICT architectures. This challenge has neither been analysed in literature on in-formation systems nor on innovation management. In order to gain a deeper understanding of this challenge, we analysed case studies in four intra-company research organisations, among them one in-depth case study. Our research shows that an intra-company ICT research organisation can make a decision based on three important strategic parameters: (a) the desired degree of innovativeness, (b) the desired degree of integrability into existing architecture, and (c) the desired degree of orientation towards prospective users’ needs. Based on our case study analysis, we argue that these three strate-gic goals are concurrent, i.e. to achieve one of them makes it difficult to achieve the others. Adhering to contingency theory, we believe that there is not one best strategic position, but that the quality of a strategic position depends on environmental contingency factors. In addition to the development of the framework, we consider contingency theory and formulate two hypothetical propositions. They de-scribe stable strategic positions of intra-company ICT research organisations in our framework, de-pendent on contingency factors. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first research publication dealing with the special requirements of intra-company ICT research organizations and the challenge of integration. Nevertheless, our research is limited by its exploratory nature and by the relatively small number of case studies taken. For generating more hypotheses, further explorative research in the field has to be done. Moreover, in order to confirm the assumptions our framework is based upon and the hypothetical propositions generated, further confirmative research is necessary

SITUATIVE METHODENKONSTRUKTION FÜR DIE PROJEKTBEWERTUNG AUS UNTERNEHMENSARCHITEKTURPERSPEKTIVE

Unternehmensarchitekturmodelle können neben der reinen Dokumentation in sehr unterschiedlichen Anwendungsszenarien für verschiedene Stakeholder nutzenstiftend angewendet werden. Diese Modelle sind oft die einzige Quelle einer umfassenden aber hinreichend groben Dokumentation der Zusammenhänge in einem Unternehmen angefangen von der strategischen Positionierung bis zur technischen Infrastruktur. In diesem Beitrag werden am Beispiel der Innovationsprojekte der Deutschen Telekom Laboratories empirisch Projekttypen und jeweils geeignete Bewertungsaktivitäten basierend auf Analysen der Unternehmensarchitektur entwickelt. Diese Ergebnisse sind die Grundlage für die Entwicklung einer situativen Methode zur Projektbewertung auf Basis der Unternehmensarchitektur

Using Enterprise Architecture Models for System Quality Analysis

Enterprise Architecture is a model-based approach to business-oriented IT management. To promote good IT decision making, an Enterprise Architecture framework needs to explicate what kind of analyses it supports. Since creating Enterprise Architecture models is expensive and without intrinsic value, it is desirable to only create Enterprise Architecture models based on metamodels that support well-defined analyses. This paper presents the content and extension of a metamodel which supports creating models containing the information necessary to conduct system quality analyses, specifically with respect to availability, accuracy, confidentiality and integrity. The metamodel is an extension and formalization of the metamodel underlying the ArchiMate modelling language for Enterprise Architecture. The use of the extended metamodel is demonstrated in a case study where the availability, accuracy, confidentiality and integrity of the two Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) platforms Sun JCaps and PrOSeRO were evaluated.© 2008 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.QC 2012021

Using Enterprise Architecture Models for System Quality Analysis

Enterprise Architecture is a model-based approach to business-oriented IT management. To promote good IT decision making, an Enterprise Architecture framework needs to explicate what kind of analyses it supports. Since creating Enterprise Architecture models is expensive and without intrinsic value, it is desirable to only create Enterprise Architecture models based on metamodels that support well-defined analyses. This paper presents the content and extension of a metamodel which supports creating models containing the information necessary to conduct system quality analyses, specifically with respect to availability, accuracy, confidentiality and integrity. The metamodel is an extension and formalization of the metamodel underlying the ArchiMate modelling language for Enterprise Architecture. The use of the extended metamodel is demonstrated in a case study where the availability, accuracy, confidentiality and integrity of the two Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) platforms Sun JCaps and PrOSeRO were evaluated.© 2008 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.QC 2012021