Dynamics of Institutional Mechanisms in Enterprise-wide Information Systems Architecture

Information systems (IS) architecture is an effort to make local, short-term IS investment decisions in line with enterprise-wide, long-term objectives. Even though existing theories on IS architecture dominantly promote a centralized decision making structure, this project takes a distinctive approach and spotlights the phenomenon of “effective collaboration” (no matter which structure is adopted). The latter examines how dynamically effective collaboration emerges over time in a longitudinal dyadic interplay among institutional mechanisms.

Due to existing merely deterministic and prescriptive approaches to IS architecture, this project sheds light on a need for a distinctive theorization that accounts for an “effective collaboration” among different local units. The phenomenon of effective collaboration aims to balance divergent, short-time local requirements to produce holistic, long-term solutions; a process which is contextual, emergent, and probabilistic in nature. To this end and through a mixed methods research design, this study examines effective collaboration from two distinctive, but inter-related perspectives. The first part of the project employs a static approach to explain which institutional factors determine the adoption of effective collaboration in enterprise-wide IS architecture (guided by institutional theory). The second part of the project, in turn, exploits a dynamic approach to explain how effective collaboration in enterprise-wide IS architecture emerges over time (guided by archetype theory). Finally, this project combines both static and dynamic explanations to triangulate the generated theory on effective collaboration in enterprise-wide IS architecture.

This project goes beyond existing conceptualizations of enterprise-wide IS architecture and uncovers its new aspects. Beyond the existing deterministic prescriptions, this study conceptualizes enterprise-wide IS architecture as an emergent process through which organizations continuously strive for achieving effective collaboration. As the proposed research project investigates one of the key priorities of IS managers, the results will be communicated with Swiss practitioners, in the structure of our existing regular gatherings with practitioners, and will be used to improve the database of case studies and eventually improve curriculum and pedagogical strategies in the relevant courses at the University of St. Gallen.