Now showing 1 - 10 of 42
  • Publication
    Crossing the line: overcoming knowledge boundaries in enterprise transformation
    (Springer Gabler, 2015-02-01) ; ;
    Enterprise transformations are fundamental changes in an organization. Such changes typically affect different stakeholder groups (e.g., program managers, business managers) that exhibit a significant diversity regarding their members' knowledge, goals, and underlying assumptions. Yet, creating shared understanding among diverse stakeholder groups in transformations is a main antecedent for success. In this paper, we analyze which properties of enterprise architecture models contribute to syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic capacities and thereby help to create shared understanding among stakeholder groups involved in enterprise transformation. We assess the differences among stakeholder groups through the lens of knowledge boundaries, and enterprise architecture models through the lens of boundary objects. We develop and empirically test a research model that describes which boundary object properties are required to overcome three progressively complex knowledge boundaries-syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic. Our findings show which boundary object properties contribute to a respective capacity needed to overcome each of the three knowledge boundaries. Specifically, we find that for (1) a syntactic capacity, concrete and modular EA models are helpful; (2) a semantic capacity, visual EA model properties are relevant, and (3) a pragmatic capacity, broad stakeholder participation is conductive.
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    Scopus© Citations 38
  • Publication
    Understanding Continuous Use of Business Intelligence Systems: A Mixed Methods Investigation
    Business intelligence (BI) systems play an important role in organizations' decision-making processes. The existing literature has long focused on the continuous use of information systems (IS). However, the specificities of BI systems such as voluntary use, long-term return of investments, heterogeneity of their use cases, and innovative rather than routine use in such systems motivate our investigating continuous use in the specific context of BI systems. To theorize continuous use of BI systems, we investigate the influencing factors and their interactions. By means of an exploratory and confirmatory mixed-methods research design that comprises a literature review, a single-case study, and a survey, we integrate the identified factors and hypothesize their influence on the continuous use of BI systems in a research model. We test the research model following a partial least squares (PLS) approach to structural equation modeling (SEM). The paper makes two primary contributions: 1) it confirms certain well-established constructs and relations in the specific context of BI systems, which are generally theorized for the continuous use of IS, and 2) it introduces either new constructs or new relations through the given investigation in the context of BI systems. Future studies can test these new constructs and relations as potential input for theorizing general IS continuous use.
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  • Publication
    The Role of Organizational Culture for Grounding, Management, Guidance and Effectiveness of Enterprise Architecture Principles
    (Springer, 2014-02-01)
    Enterprise architecture management (EAM) has become a widely acknowledged approach for guiding the continuous change of increasingly complex organizations. While methods and models for describing and analyzing enterprise architectures (EA) have been extensively discussed, principles guiding an EA's design and evolution are hardly covered in existing research. The paper at hand therefore analyzes the mechanisms of EA principles (EAP), that is EAP grounding, EAP management, and EAP guidance and their effects on EA consistency and EAM utility. Specifically we aim at understanding the role of organizational culture for the mechanisms and effects of EAP. Based on empirical data we find that all relations describing EAP mechanisms and their effects are significantly moderated by organizational culture. Based on our findings we give recommendations on how to deal with selected design decisions when introducing and developing EA principles in an organization.
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    Scopus© Citations 78
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  • Publication
    Untangling EA’s Long Path of Becoming a Partner for Business Transformation: The Case of Swiss Federal Railways
    (IEEE Computer Society, 2016-09-05) ; ; ;
    Rytz, Bernhard
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    Dijkman, Remco
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    Pires, Luís Ferreira
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    Rinderle-Ma, Stefanie
    We analyze the enterprise architecture management (EAM) ‘journey’ of the Swiss Federal Railways over the last twenty years. Fundamental organizational changes were matched by shifts of EAM’s focus from advocating an enterprise-wide perspective over developing the enterprise architecture toolbox to establishing business transformation support. Beyond maturity considerations, insights from this longitudinal case study can be gained from an institutional perspective, i.e., by describing the EAM journey not only as a process of establishing the EAM function, but also as a process that extends EAM effects beyond the boundaries of IT. We identify four principles that guided this process: (1) Consistency of norms and values (2) Focus on reinventing rather than maturing (3) Picking the right EAM ‘battles’, and (4) Playing on EAM’s holistic perspective.
    Scopus© Citations 6
  • Publication
    Implementing Architectural Thinking: A Case Study at Commerzbank AG
    (Springer, 2015-06-08) ; ;
    Pähler, Patrick
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    Persson, Anne
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    Stirna, Janis
    The discipline of enterprise architecture (EA) has become well-established in many organizations and is continuously discussed in academic literature. However, EA's effectiveness beyond IT is limited. The paradigm of architectural thinking aims at reaching the 90% of an organization that is not related to IT. The paper contrasts the abstract definitions of architectural thinking with empirical case study data. We find that practice has developed implementations of these abstract definitions. However, we also find new characteristics of architectural thinking that have not yet been discussed in literature. Specifically, these are the role of decisions and the role of formal governance mechanisms.
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    Scopus© Citations 11
  • Publication
    Success Factors for Federated Enterprise Architecture Model Management
    (Springer, 2015-06-08)
    Aleatrati Khosroshahi, Pouya
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    Hauder, Matheus
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    Roth, Sascha
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    Matthes, Florian
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    Persson, Anne
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    Stirna, Janis
    Recent approaches for managing Enterprise Architecture (EA) models provide technical systems to procure information from existing repositories within the application landscape of an organization. Beyond technical solutions, social factors are of utmost importance to implement a successful EA initiative. Institutional theory has for example been employed to understand crucial factors for realizing EA management (EAM) benefits through architectural thinking. Yet, it remains unclear how these social factors influence a federated approach for EA model management. Based on a socio-technical systems perspective, we investigate success factors for Federated EA Model Management (FEAMM) by conducting qualitative interviews with industry experts. Our findings suggest that success factors for FEAMM are related to the model sources, modeling instruments, and model integration aspects from a technical perspective as well as to organizational grounding, governance, enforcement, efficiency, goal alignment, and trust from a social perspective.
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    Scopus© Citations 3
  • Publication
    Management Objectives and Design Principles for the Cost Allocation of Business Intelligence
    (Association for Information Systems, 2015-07-05)
    Epple, Johannes
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    Today business intelligence (BI) systems, which provide management with decision-supportive information, are considered to be a prerequisite for organizational success. In contrast to the operation of BI, BI system management is still an emerging topic in information systems (IS) research. Even though the cost management of BI systems is highly relevant for practice, the field is widely unexplored. Cost allocations for BI systems are supposed to enhance transparency, create cost awareness and support the management of resources of the BI system. In our research we have conducted two focus group studies to examine the basis for BI cost allocations. First, we derive management goals and design principles for a BI cost allocation from an exploratory focus group. In a second step, we evaluate the goals and the design principles in a confirmatory focus group. Our research provides valuable insights on the application of BI cost allocations from our focus groups and contributes a basis for the design of BI cost allocation methods.
  • Publication
    Fail Early, Fail Often: Towards Coherent Feedback Loops in Design Science Research Evaluation
    (Association for Information Sytems, 2014-12-14) ; ;
    We propose feedback loops that increase the coherence between evaluation activities in a design science research (DSR) process. While several scholars have proposed DSR cycles with frequent evaluation activities to provide timely feedback on design activities, the question of how to ensure coherence between these activities has remained largely unaddressed. Yet, coherence is essential to claim validity not only for the DSR artifact, but also for the DSR process. Based on a review of existing DSR literature, we propose an approach that ensures coherence between initial problem definition and final evaluation activities by explicating the notion of relevance underlying the DSR project, and between design and construction activities by creating situational design specifications.We exemplarily apply our approach to an ongoing DSR project. We conclude with a research agenda, where we build on the recent debate on generalizability in information systems to identify six fruitful avenues for further research.
  • Publication
    Information Provision as a Success Factor in the Architectural Support of Enterprise Transformations
    (IEEE Computer Society, 2014-07-15) ; ;
    Aveiro, David
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    Bjekovic, Marija
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    Caetano, Artur
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    Fleischmann, Albert
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    Heuser, Lutz
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    De Kinderen, Sybren
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    Komarov, Mikhail M.
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    Koucheryavy, Yevgeni
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    Maltseva, Svetlana V.
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    Molnar, Wolfgang
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    Oberweis, Andreas
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    Proper, Henderik A.
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    Rappa, Michael
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    Schmidt, Werner
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    Schoenthaler, Frank
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    Sottet, Jean-Sébastien
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    Stary, Christian
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    Vossen, Gottfried
    Enterprise transformations (ET) fail in many cases or do not accomplish the expected goals. Enterprise architecture management (EAM) is often considered to be an appropriate means to tackle this problem by providing information that is relevant to ET managers. Therefore, we analyze, which types of information provided during an ET contributes to its success. In addition we discuss if EAM can appropriately support ETs by providing relevant information. The results show that value can be provided to ET management when business-related information on a detailed level is offered. Examples are business requirements, business functions, or qualitative measures. We find information that can be provided by EAM to be an important success factor for ETs.
    Scopus© Citations 1