The Architects' Perspective on Enterprise Transformation: An Explorative Study

Enterprise architecture management (EAM) is considered to be a valuable means in order to support large-scale changes, called enterprise transformations (ET). In the study at hand we apply an explorative qualitative approach in order to investigate the potentials of EAM to support ETs by discussing the topic with highly knowledgeable informants that deal with EAM on a daily basis in nine different companies. The results reveal six propositions about the current and future state of EAM as an ET supporting discipline. The propositions reveal a distinction between IT and business focused EAM, means and activities taken by EAM to support ET, major pitfalls that need to be avoided as much as per-ceptions about the future of the discipline.