Enterprise Architecture Artifacts Research Articles

An integrative model of enterprise architecture value: a grounded theory study to position its artifacts

PurposeDespite the relevance of how enterprise architecture (EA) contributes to organizational performance in contemporary digital technology-driven strategic renewal, little is known about the position of EA artifacts. Therefore, this study aims to build an integrative model of EA artifact-enabled EA value supplemented with a research agenda to enhance our understanding further.Design/methodology/approachThis study leveraged grounded theory techniques and a systematic review approach to develop the integrative model and research agenda.FindingsWe inductively build a model of the position of EA artifacts in EA value creation. Additionally, we elaborate a research agenda that proposes (1) an investigation of the role of an EA practice in successful strategic change, (2) an examination of how to manage EA practice value generation and (3) longitudinal research to gain insight into the evolution of value creation by EA practices.Originality/valueThis study presents a model of EA artifact-enabled EA value, thereby contributing to our understanding of the mechanisms, inhibitors and success factors associated with EA value. Following our model, the proposed research agenda contains future research areas to help us better understand the mechanisms and interrelatedness of EA practices in highly dynamic environments.

Enterprise architecture artifacts as boundary objects: An empirical analysis

Enterprise architecture artifacts as boundary objects: An empirical analysis

Toward an information systems architecture model for university hospitals: A case study in a Brazilian public hospital

AbstractThe implementation of information systems (IS) architecture is a step in constructing enterprise architecture (EA) according to The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF) and can introduce notable benefits in supporting the management and governance of information and communications technology (ICT) in organizations. However, the literature lacks models that support the construction of IS architectures in university hospitals (UHs). The Hospital das Clínicas of the Federal University of Pernambuco (HC‐UFPE) is a large UH that confronts ICT misalignments of with other internal areas. In this context, this study investigates and proposes an IS architecture model for UHs through a case study conducted at HC‐UFPE. The data collection methodology for constructing the IS architecture of this hospital was based on consultations with institutional documents, interviews with strategic stakeholders, and participant observations in the hospital's ICT sector. Open coding and data triangulation were used to analyze the data. This study presents two main contributions. (1) The development of a model used to assist in the construction of IS architecture for UHs. The model developed in this study has a practical application with the TOGAF 9.2 framework and Archi software for constructing an IS architecture for HC‐UFPE. (2) The development and delivery of an HC‐UFPE IS architecture to support the hospital's ICT governance, providing, through EA artifacts, a holistic view of the hospital's current and future ICT processes, in addition to the identification of gaps, challenges, and viable solutions to be considered for decision making to improve service delivery and ICT alignment with other hospital areas.

A Method for Enterprise Architecture Model Slicing

Enterprise Architecture (EA) has been applied widely in industry as it brings substantial benefits to ease communication and improve business-IT alignment. However, due to its high complexity and cost, EA still plays a limited role in many organizations. Existing research recommends realizing more of the EA potential. EA can be developed for specific purposes, accumulated in a digital repository, and reused when needed later. Due to the diversity and inconsistency of the repository, it is challenging to find relevant EA data and reuse it. In the present research, we propose using slicing techniques to extract EA models for reuse. We validate the method with an official EA repository hosted by The Open Group. The result shows that the method could facilitate extracting existing EA model components for developing new EA artifacts to save cost, alleviate maintenance effort, and help keep the repository consistent for future (re)use.

ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE – A QUEST FOR CHILI AGROSYSTEM

This study intends to reveal the enterprise architecture (EA) framework that fits the chili agrosystem concerning its perishable nature and supply chain diversity. The chili agrosystem faces many challenges, and the EA artefacts that represent the building block of a chili enterprise system (ES) are yet to be pursued. EA and EA frameworks (EAF) are not a new problem. Various methodologies, methods, and approaches have offered to describe EA and EAF practices and their implementation. There are more than 100 EAF available and used in many areas. Our study is part of developing the ES to monitor chili production, consumption, and price. The first step toward ES development is recognizing worthy chili EA and EAF that characterize existing chili market conditions. Our study aims to answer three research questions: RQ1 - What is the Indonesia chili agrosystem outlook? RQ2 - What is the state-ofart of EA? and RQ3 - What is the EAF state-of-the-art for the chili agrosystem? The study uses a state-of-the-art approach, employing predetermined keywords, to six research databases and data gathered from the corresponding institutional agencies. The findings on RQ1 revealed that there are eight dynamics chili main supply chain patterns, and there exists data segregation among institutional agencies. The RQ2 disclosed numerous studies on EA; however, none offered for the chili agrosystem. Similarly, the RQ3 results are multiple and exposing different EAF characteristics. Again, no study considers its applicability for the chili agrosystem. In conclusion, the strength of enterprise architecture is the resulting deliverables that fall into three categories. These factors are chili agrosystem, enterprise, and architecture factors. Of many available frameworks, the Zachman framework gives more offerings. Hence, we select the 3x6 matrix of Zachman Framework the Ontology (version 3.0) producing Blue Print of Smart Enterprise System Chili.

CAESAR8: An agile enterprise architecture approach to managing information security risks

In theory, implementing an Enterprise Architecture (EA) should enable organizations to increase the accuracy of information security risk assessments. In reality, however, organizations struggle to fully implement EA frameworks because the requirements for implementing an EA and the benefits of commercial frameworks are unclear, and the overhead of maintaining EA artifacts is unacceptable, especially for smaller organizations. In this paper, we describe a novel approach called CAESAR8 (Continuous Agile Enterprise Security Architecture Review in 8 domains) that supports dynamic and holistic reviews of information security risks in IT projects. CAESAR8’s nonlinear design supports continuous reassessment of information security risks, based on a checklist that assesses the maturity of security considerations in eight domains that often cause information security failures. CAESAR8 assessments can be completed by multiple stakeholders independently, thus ensuring consideration of their tacit knowledge while preventing groupthink. Our evaluation with experienced industry professionals showed that CAESAR8 successfully addresses real-world problems in information security risk management, with significant benefits particularly for smaller organizations.

The practical roles of enterprise architecture artifacts: A classification and relationship

Enterprise architecture (EA) is a description of an enterprise from an integrated business and IT perspective. EA is typically defined as a comprehensive blueprint of an organization covering its business, data, applications and technology domains and consisting of diverse EA artifacts. EA has numerous potential stakeholders and usage scenarios in organizations. However, the existing EA literature does not offer any consistent theories explaining the practical roles of individual EA artifacts and fails to explain how exactly different types of EA artifacts are used in practice. This study intends to explore the roles of different EA artifacts in organizations and develop a generic descriptive theory explaining these roles. The theory purports to cover various properties of EA artifacts as well as the relationships between them. The research method of this study follows two consecutive phases: theory construction and theory validation. First, theory construction is based on the qualitative in-depth analysis of five case organizations with established EA practices. Next, theory validation includes confirmatory interviews with ten EA experts. This study develops a descriptive theory explaining the roles of different EA artifacts in an EA practice. The resulting theory defines six general types of EA artifacts (Considerations, Standards, Visions, Landscapes, Outlines and Designs, CSVLOD) and explains their type-specific practical roles, including their informational contents , typical usage, ensuing organizational benefits and interrelationships with each other. This study presents the first systematic theory describing the usage of EA artifacts in organizations. Our theory facilitates better theoretical understanding of the concept of EA and also provides evidence-based solutions to the commonly reported practical problems with EA. This study suggests that the EA research community should focus on studying individual EA artifacts instead of studying EA in general and calls for further research on EA artifacts and their usage as part of EA practices.

Toward National One Health Data: Reconfiguring Local Health Information Systems through Enterprise Architecture

Indonesian government is currently on the course of nationwide digital transformation, manifested through its ‘One-Data Policy’ recently introduced by top-level government. The initiative also includes the country’s health information systems (HIS) for which various technological choices are under consideration to be implemented. However, such a sound and ambitious initiative often overlook the configurational outlook of local systems where the data is created and aggregated to the national system. This study addresses this issue by exploring the issues pertaining to local HIS and developing its enterprise architecture to reconfigure the existing arrangement of the systems. Using a case study of Palangka Raya municipal health government, this study contributes to this current important agenda by delineating the complexity that occurs at local HIS and proposing a set of enterprise architecture artifacts required toward Indonesian one health data.

Enterprise architecture artefacts as instruments for knowledge management: a theoretical interpretation

ABSTRACT Enterprise architecture (EA) involves a collection of special documents, or artefacts, describing various aspects of an organisation from an integrated business and IT perspective. Knowledge management is a practice of generating, storing and sharing knowledge within an organisation and EA artefacts can be clearly viewed as special instruments for managing knowledge. Based on the analysis of EA artefacts used in 27 diverse organisations, we study the properties of the most popular artefacts through the conceptual lenses of knowledge management. Specifically, we analyse what forms of knowledge these EA artefacts represent, what knowledge management strategies they implement, what knowledge management systems they leverage and how these features correlate with other properties of EA artefacts. This study provides arguably the first available in-depth analysis of EA artefacts as instruments for managing knowledge. Our analysis demonstrates a wide diversity of EA artefacts from the perspective of their approaches to knowledge management.

Stakeholder engagement in enterprise architecture practice: What inhibitors are there?

Enterprise architecture (EA) is a collection of artifacts describing various aspects of an organization from an integrated business and IT perspective. EA practice is an organizational activity that implies using EA artifacts for facilitating decision-making and improving business and IT alignment. EA practice involves numerous participants ranging from C-level executives to project teams and effective engagement between these stakeholders and architects is critically important for success. Moreover, many practical problems with EA practice can be also attributed to insufficient engagement between architects and other EA stakeholders. However, the notion of engagement received only limited attention in the EA literature and the problem of establishing engagement has not been intentionally studied. This paper intends to explore in detail the problem of achieving effective engagement between architects and other EA stakeholders in an organization, identify the main inhibitors of engagement and present a theoretical model explaining the problem of establishing engagement in practice. This paper is based on a single in-depth revelatory case study including nine interviews with different participants of EA practice (e.g. architects and other EA stakeholders) and documentation analysis. It leverages the grounded theory method to construct a conceptual model explaining the problem of engagement in the studied organization. This paper identifies 28 direct and indirect inhibitors of engagement and unifies them into a holistic conceptual model addressing the problem of achieving engagement that covers the factors undermining both strategic and initiative-based engagement between architects and other EA stakeholders. This paper focuses on the notion of engagement and offers arguably the first available theoretical model that explains how typical engagement problems between architects and other stakeholders inhibit the realization of value from EA practice. However, the developed model has a number of limitations and we call for further empirical research on engagement problems in EA practice and coping strategies for addressing these problems.

ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE ARTIFACTS FACILITATING THE STRATEGY PLANNING PROCESS FOR DIGITAL TRANSFORMATIONS: A SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE REVIEW AND MULTIPLE CASE STUDY

The exploitation of new value propositions enabled by disruptive digital technologies—also known as digital transformations—influences the configuration of people, processes, and technology in a firm and must be considered in the enterprise’s strategy. Strategy planning, i.e., the process that determines strategy, is facilitated by enterprise architecture (EA). Hence, strategic plans are reflected in EA documents called artifacts. Our research identified fifteen EA artifacts that facilitate digital transformations’ strategy planning process through a systematic literature review. Furthermore, a multiple case study in the financial services sector was carried out to verify our theoretical findings. The case organizations show a fragmented implementation of EA artifacts, with each organization having established its own, almost unique, way of using them. Only four of the theoretically conceptualized artifacts were found in all organizations. Moreover, two EA artifacts used in all case organizations were not included in our theoretical conceptualization. In combination with the empirical research, the systematic literature review leads to an improved understanding of EA artifacts and their use in the strategy planning process for digital transformations.

The theoretical basis of enterprise architecture: A critical review and taxonomy of relevant theories

Enterprise architecture is a collection of artifacts describing various aspects of an organization from an integrated business and IT perspective. Practicing enterprise architecture in organizations implies using these artifacts to facilitate information systems planning and improve business and IT alignment. Despite its long history, the enterprise architecture discipline still remains largely atheoretical and lacks a solid theoretical basis. Based on our previous empirical studies of the practical usage of enterprise architecture artifacts in multiple organizations and broad literature analysis, this conceptual article identifies and discusses in detail 10 theories that can be considered key for understanding how an enterprise architecture practice works: actor-network theory, boundary objects theory, cognitive fit theory, communities of practice theory, decision-making theories, information processing theory, knowledge management theory, management fashion theory, media richness theory, and uncertainty principle. Taken together, these theories offer a comprehensive theoretical view of an enterprise architecture practice explaining the role of enterprise architecture artifacts, their usability, and participation of stakeholders and, therefore, may constitute a theoretical basis of the entire enterprise architecture discipline. Although this article does not elaborate on any of these theories, it brings these theories to light, establishes their critical importance for comprehending an enterprise architecture practice, and positions them as central to the enterprise architecture discourse. Each of these theories can be leveraged by enterprise architecture scholars in their future studies for analyzing enterprise architecture practices through respective theoretical lenses. This article intends to provide fresh theoretical insights on enterprise architecture, spark new waves of theoretical enterprise architecture research, and contribute to the development of a sound theoretical foundation for the enterprise architecture discipline.

Enterprise Architecture Artifacts Enablers for IT Strategy and Business Alignment in Forwarding Services

The development of information technology in this era has grown rapidly and made information technology important in running a company's business. The need for information technology that is fast and reliable becomes the main thing for users of information technology. Therefore, supporting information technology is needed in the current era of globalization is needed in developing information systems. Freight Forwarding Services is a company engaged in the field of land transportation services that is aware of the role of information technology in achieving business goals because it is related, the development of the information technology world demands all that is efficient and effective. FFS Company have several applications to support corporate processes, but there are still a number of business activities that have not used applications to support the process. The application used by the company must be able to match the company's objectives so that the application used can help the company reach an agreement. To create applications that fit business objectives, company architecture is used in making applications. This research will use The Open Group Architecture Framework to help request useful assistance for company. The final results of this study are in the form of a proposed application model that is tailored to the business processes and business needs of the company.

Issues limiting the evaluation of post implemented enterprise architecture

<span>Evaluation in enterprise architecture (EA) project is crucial to provide comprehensive information of the developed EA artefacts. It may assist in accurate evaluation of implemented Information Systems (ISs) in order to realize the achievement of EA’s goals and support EA decision makers. This research aims to identify and elaborate the existing issues of EA evaluation models. One of the crucial identified issues is to understand, capture and represent core aspects of EA artefacts. Most existing evaluation models do not provide structured approach which cover comprehensive aspect of EA implementation and some do not provide good practices to be applied. Hence, this research intends to cover the gap by exploring critical issues in EA implementation evaluation and elaborating main shortcomings of the reviewed EA models and methods through a systematic literature review</span>

How enterprise architecture improves the quality of IT investment decisions

According to literature, enterprise architecture (EA) is supposed to support IT investment decision-making. However, it is not yet clear how EA can do that. The objective of this study is to explore how EA can support IT investment decisions. A quantitative research approach was chosen, in which data were collected from a survey of 142 participants. These data were used to perform a comparative analysis between top and bottom quartile organizations on 1) the EA maturity, 2) the use of EA artifacts in the preparation of IT investments, and 3) the key insights that EA provides in preparation of IT investments. We found that top quartile organizations are more mature in all EA maturity areas. They also make more extensive use of different types of EA artifacts in the preparation of IT investment decisions, especially diagnostic and actionable artifacts. Finally, EA provides top quartile organizations with more key insights in the preparation of IT investment decisions, and in particular, strategic insights. As a result of our research we created a conceptual model that integrates seven propositions. Further research is required to test these propositions and develop instruments to aid enterprise architects to effectively support IT investment decisions.

Enterprise architecture and enterprise architecture artifacts: Questioning the old concept in light of new findings

Enterprise architecture is a description of an enterprise from an integrated business and IT perspective intended to bridge the communication gap between business and IT stakeholders and improve business and IT alignment. Enterprise architecture consists of multiple different artifacts providing certain views of an organization and the available enterprise architecture literature offers a number of comprehensive lists of artifacts that can be used as part of an enterprise architecture practice. However, these lists of enterprise architecture artifacts were never validated empirically and the practical usage of different artifacts still remains largely unexplored. Based on a comprehensive empirical analysis of enterprise architecture artifacts used in 27 diverse organizations, this study identifies the list of 24 common artifacts that proved useful in practice and describes in detail their usage and purpose. Although this study does not attempt to theorize on the findings, it makes a significant empirical contribution to the enterprise architecture discipline. In particular, this study (1) provides the first consistent list of enterprise architecture artifacts that actually proved useful in organizations, (2) offers the first available systematic description of their usage, (3) questions the common view of enterprise architecture as a set of business, information, applications and technology architectures and (4) questions the widely accepted conceptualization of enterprise architecture as a set of the current state, future state and transition roadmap. This study provides compelling empirical evidence in favor of reconceptualizing enterprise architecture and calls for further research in this direction.

A decision-making approach for enterprise architecture evolution using simulation

Enterprise architecture (EA) is a discipline that provides management with appropriate indicators and controls to steer and model the enterprise during change. However, the management of such change is a challenging task for enterprise architects due to the complex dependencies amongst EA models when evolving from initial (As-is) to posterior (To-be) states. We present an approach supporting design decision during EA evolution, by assisting enterprise architects in computing best alternatives to a posterior state. In doing so, we model EA artefacts dependencies and identify their evolution during change. This model is, then, processed using a control schema to inform EA design decisions. Further, we rationalise on design decision by computing EA models alternatives, using Markov theory. Finally, we evaluate this decision-making approach using a motivating example by simulating a stochastic solution in order to argue about the usefulness and applicability of our proposal.

A decision-making approach for enterprise architecture evolution using simulation

Enterprise architecture (EA) is a discipline that provides management with appropriate indicators and controls to steer and model the enterprise during change. However, the management of such change is a challenging task for enterprise architects due to the complex dependencies amongst EA models when evolving from initial (As-is) to posterior (To-be) states. We present an approach supporting design decision during EA evolution, by assisting enterprise architects in computing best alternatives to a posterior state. In doing so, we model EA artefacts dependencies and identify their evolution during change. This model is, then, processed using a control schema to inform EA design decisions. Further, we rationalise on design decision by computing EA models alternatives, using Markov theory. Finally, we evaluate this decision-making approach using a motivating example by simulating a stochastic solution in order to argue about the usefulness and applicability of our proposal.

First in-depth analysis of enterprise architectures and models for higher education institutions

Enterprise Reference Architectures (ERAs) and Reference Models (RMs) have emerged over the last years as relevant instruments for improving the quality and effectiveness of enterprise architecture (EA) practice. Whilst a wide variety of different ERAs and RMs have been proposed for different industries and types of business, only few of them have been devoted to the Higher Education (HE) sector. In this paper, we propose an in-depth analysis process which we then critically apply to review, compare and classify 20 existing ERAs and RMs targeted to the HE domain. Our process uses a common set of 12 definitional attributes. In so doing, we contribute to the existing body of knowledge by providing a unified, structured and comprehensive analysis process and catalog of these abstract EA artifacts. With this we aim to create awareness on their potential practical utility and to increase their visibility, transparency and opportunity for their reusability by different HE stakeholders. Hence, the proposed process and catalog is expected to be useful both for practitioners and researchers by providing a panoramic view of more or less ready-to-use existing ERAs and RMs for HE, as well as a structure way to regard them. Moreover, and by specifying their main scope, coverage and extend of knowledge captured, the process and catalog might become a valuable tool for providing guidance to HE stakeholders on making better-informed decisions on the selection of suitable architectural artifacts for being conveniently adapted or applied in different EA practices conducted at their respective institutions.

RETRACTED ARTICLE: A systematic review on post-implementation evaluation models of enterprise architecture artefacts

Evaluating Enterprise Architecture (EA) projects is crucial to providing comprehensive information of the developed EA artefacts and assisting with the accurate evaluation of implemented Information Systems (ISs) in order to realize the achievement of EA goals and support EA decision makers. EA evaluation involves assessing the appropriateness and efficiency of each validated design with respect to predefined common evaluation criteria. The objectives of this study are to review models currently used in EA evaluation, identify the practices applied in EA evaluation, and identify current problems and areas related to EA evaluation. The aim of this study is to conduct a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) of papers referring to EA evaluation that were published between 2006 and 2014. In total, 418 papers were identified and retrieved from 6 databases. 34 primary studies were selected through the paper selection process. From the selected studies, 32 % were journal articles, 36 % were conference papers, while 32 % were contributions from book chapters. Several precise research works have been done on EA evaluation. However, there are still problems in evaluating EA implementation, including: a structured approach to EA evaluation, covering all aspects of EA evaluation, considering various perspectives, and appropriate metrics. An investigation of existing evaluation models for EA implementation shows the models are mostly inconsistent, and disunity is currently the greatest characteristic in this area. Moreover, there is no integral evaluation approach that covers all processes comprehensively.