Navigating Enterprise Architecture (EA) Institutionalization: The Interplay of EA and Agile
Doctoral thesis
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https://hdl.handle.net/11250/3125001Utgivelsesdato
2024Metadata
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Sammendrag
In the rapidly evolving context of digital transformation, the effective adoption, management, and institutionalization of Enterprise Architecture (EA) have emerged as significant efforts for organizations looking for ways to navigate the complex requirements of modern business environments. This Ph.D. thesis embarks on a comprehensive exploration of different aspects of EA, ranging from its adoption challenges to its interaction with agile transformations. This study's main objective is to shed light on different aspects of EA adoption, management, challenges, and integration within large-scale organizations.
The research questions that form the foundation of this thesis are designed to explore the complex nuances of an EA's journey within an organization. The thesis investigates the role of stakeholders in influencing the perception and institutionalization of EA in order to respond to the first research question. It highlights the complex interactions between different stakeholders and their different interests, showing how these interactions can have a big impact on how successful EA initiatives are. The study goes deeper into the organizational factors that contributed to the failure of EA management initiatives, explaining the significance of legitimacy and showing challenges to achieving normative and cultural-cognitive legitimacy.
The third research question focuses on the topic of delegitimization of established EA practices. The thesis shows the ways through which EA practices can lose momentum and relevance within organizations by examining the complex interplay of regulatory, pragmatic, normative, and cultural-cognitive legitimacy. Building on this foundation, the thesis navigates the cycles of EA's institutionalization, de-institutionalization, and re-institutionalization within the organizational context. This dynamic approach highlights the importance of regaining legitimacy and adapting to modern organizational approaches in order to achieve successful re-institutionalization.
In light of the growing popularity of agile approaches, the thesis investigates the challenges posed by such paradigm shifts to established EA practices. The study outlines the modifications that must be made to EA practices by identifying the main functions that EA must do to support organizational agility. The outcome of this study is a collection of five papers, each of which shows a different part of EA's journey. Together, these contributions enhance the understanding of EA's adoption, management, and integration with agile paradigms, significantly advancing the body of knowledge in this domain.
This Ph.D. thesis gives a comprehensive overview of EA's strategic, operational, and innovative capacity. It shows how stakeholders, organizational dynamics, and an evolving digital environment all work together. This thesis helps organizations looking to use the advantages of EA in their goals of sustainable growth and agility by addressing the research questions and highlighting different aspects of the EA's role.
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Paper 1: Kohansal, Mohammad Ali; Løland Hjelle, Torstein Elias; and Rolland, Knut-Helge Ronæs. "Navigating Enterprise Architecture (EA) Definition: A Story of EA Adoption in a Public Sector Organization" (2021). 12th Scandinavian Conference on Information Systems. 6.Paper 2: Kohansal, Mohammad Ali; Rolland, Knut-Helge Ronæs; Khodambashi, Soudabeh (2022). Towards an Explanation for Why Enterprise Architecture Management Fails: A Legitimacy Lens. In: Cuel, R., Ponte, D., Virili, F. (eds) Exploring Digital Resilience. ItAIS 2021. Lecture Notes in Information Systems and Organisation, vol 57. Springer, Cham. © 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
Paper 3: Kohansal, Mohammad Ali; Haki, Kazem (2021). How enterprise architecture loses momentum: a case of delegitimization. In Proceedings of the Forty-Second International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS 2021).
Paper 4: Kohansal, Mohammad Ali; Haki, Kazem (2021). Enterprise architecture's ups and downs over time: a case of de-and re-institutionalization. In Proceedings of the Forty-Second International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS 2021).
Paper 5: Kohansal, Mohammad Ali; Røstad, Håkon; Krogstie, John (2023). Enterprise Architecture Evolution Towards an Agile Transformation Advisor. This paper is not yet published and is therefore not included.