Implicit Coordination and Enterprise Architecting Effectiveness

Abstract

Many organizations have embraced enterprise architecture (EA) as an approach to support business processes and develop and maintain software systems in an efficient and consistent way across the organization. The extant research on EA has focused mostly on technical and governance aspects of EA, which are important, but insufficient to explain whether EA can yield the promised benefits. For EA to succeed, the processes used to conceptualize, design, implement, manage, and change the EA also need to be effective. We refer to this collection of processes as “enterprise architecting”. Our data from qualitative interviews show that effective architecting is the result of well-coordinated EA activities. Our article investigates how two important types of coordination—explicit (i.e., behavioral) and implicit (i.e., cognitive) coordination influence architecting effectiveness. Our study found that implicit coordination is particularly important because it not only influences architecting effectiveness directly, but it also enhances the effects of explicit coordination. More specifically, shared schemas enhance the benefits of governance mechanisms (coordination by plan), whereas common ground enhances the benefits of communication (coordination by feedback). We also uncovered a “self-fueling” recursive effect in which architecting effectiveness further strengthens implicit coordination, generating a beneficial cycle of continual EA improvement.