Raphael Schilling

Enterprise architecture management (EAM) is commonly employed by large organizations to coordinate local information system development efforts in line with organization-wide strategic objectives while simultaneously avoiding redundancies and inconsistencies. Even though EAM tools and processes have become increasingly mature over the past decade, many organizations still struggle to generate impact from their EAM initiatives. To this end, we describe how enterprise architects at Commerzbank, a major international bank, employed a control mechanism portfolio perspective to more effectively anchor EAM within the organization. This approach allows to purposefully combine a wide range of different formal and informal EAM control mechanisms, thereby going beyond the formal, topdown driven mechanisms predominantly discussed in EAM literature. Furthermore, such EAM control mechanism portfolios provide an effective means to purposefully realign EAM in reaction to major strategic shifts. The application of this perspective is demonstrated by tracing the evolution of EAM at Commerzbank for more than a decade (2008 to 2018) through a turbulent and challenging competitive environment, resulting in several major strategic realignments that required corresponding adjustments in EAM. We believe that such consciously designed and diversified EAM control mechanism portfolios also provide a useful means for other large organizations to more effectively conduct EAM.

Aligning local business and technology initiatives with enterprise-wide objectives remains a challenge for many organizations. To this end, Enterprise Architecture Management (EAM) imposes formal control mechanisms such as architecture plans and principles aimed at leveraging enterprise-wide standards and harnessing information systems (IS) complexity. Addressing recent calls to complement EAM control portfolios with informal control mechanisms, this study reports on the design, implementation and adoption of an Enterprise Architecture Label at a large multinational engineering company. Based on recent research on nudging, we deliberately designed the choice architecture of local decision makers. The Enterprise Architecture Label aims to influence the decision-making process, so that IS design alternatives that are preferable from an enterprise-wide perspective appear to be more attractive. Following an Action Design Research approach, the paper highlights the process of defining the underlying measurement system, designing an appropriate presentation, and the learnings and theory implications made throughout this process.

Understanding and dealing with the dynamic nature of Enterprise Architecture (EA) is a key challenge in successfully guiding its long-term evolution. While a considerable number of publications offer prescriptive knowledge on the design of Enterprise Architecture Management (EAM), explanations and descriptions of the dynamic nature of EA are rare. This is surprising, as an improved understanding on the dynamic nature of EA could enhance the tools and guidelines used in EAM. This paper aims at systematically identifying, discussing and comparing theories that have been applied to better to understand, explain and deal with the dynamic nature of EA. Based on a literature review, five distinct theories are identified and analyzed through a framework covering the main aspects of dynamics in EA. The resulting overview may support academics in identifying suitable theoretical lenses and motivates for a multi-theoretical perspective on the dynamic nature of EA.

Enterprise architecture management (EAM) has long been considered a governance means to impose enterprise-wide objectives to local information systems development projects. This perspective on EAM inevitably brings about formal control mechanisms with the aim of enforcing enterprise-wide objectives in a top-down fashion. This study takes a complementary perspective by investigating the portfolio of control mechanisms with and beyond formal control mechanisms. We examine control portfolios and their dynamics over time. We employ control theory to capture the portfolio of control mechanisms, and an organizational sensemaking perspective, to capture its dynamics. The longitudinal analysis of a financial service company over a decade reveals that EAM’s portfolio of control mechanisms emerges in an ongoing sensemaking process. In this process, various stakeholders continuously interpret cues in their environment and take actions in response to these cues. Further, we demonstrate that control portfolios are constantly (re)configured, through different combinations of formal and informal mechanisms.

Studying organizational configurations on the one hand and the dynamics of organizational change on the other hand are dominant topics of interest in the information systems (IS) discipline. Studies in each of these research streams take advantage of various well-established theoretical lenses from reference disciplines such as management science. In this study, we take a closer look at archetype theory, which combines these two research streams and which eventually provides a dynamic perspective on organizational configurations. Through a literature review, this study provides a comprehensive understanding of archetype theory (i.e., its constitutive constructs and assumptions) as well as on its application in studying dynamics of configurations. In introducing archetype theory to IS research, we discuss the explanatory power of the respective theory for investigating IS phenomena as well as the methodological and theoretical implications of employing the theory in IS research.

The identification of a problem, its causes and its consequences are integral parts of designing useful solutions in Design Science Research (DSR). Many problems addressed in DSR are of a socio-technical nature, and they are collaboratively solved in multidisciplinary teams. Accordingly, analysis techniques are needed which integrate diverse perspectives of problem analysis. Colored Cognitive Mapping for DSR (CCM4DSR) is such a technique. By applying CCM4DSR to an exemplary socio-technical problem, this paper reports on observed challenges and offers four extensions to CCM4DSR. These extensions provide guidance in adequately stating the problem, considering path dependencies, explicating different stakeholder perspectives, and integrating dif-ferent perspectives through a comprehensive process.