Empirical insights into the development of a service-oriented enterprise architecture

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Organisations use Enterprise Architecture (EA) to reduce organisational complexity, improve communication, align business and information technology (IT), and drive organisational change. Due to the dynamic nature of environmental and organisational factors, EA descriptions need to change over time to keep providing value for its stakeholders. Emerging business and IT trends, such as Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), may impact EA frameworks, methodologies, governance and tools. However, the phenomenon of EA evolution is still poorly understood. Using Archer's morphogenetic theory as a foundation, this research conceptualises three analytical phases of EA evolution in organisations, namely conditioning, interaction and elaboration. Based on a case study with a government agency, this paper provides new empirically and theoretically grounded insights into EA evolution, in particular in relation to the introduction of SOA, and describes relevant generative mechanisms affecting EA evolution. By doing so, it builds a foundation to further examine the impact of other IT trends such as mobile or cloud-based solutions on EA evolution. At a practical level, the research delivers a model that can be used to guide professionals to manage EA and continually evolve it.

论文关键词:Enterprise architecture,EA,Service-oriented architecture,SOA,Critical realism,Morphogenetic theory

论文评审过程:Received 7 March 2015, Revised 14 September 2015, Accepted 15 September 2015, Available online 25 September 2015, Version of Record 22 September 2016.

论文官网地址:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.datak.2015.09.004