The Organizational Impact of Enterprise Architecture: A Research Framework

Many organizations have adopted an Enterprise Architecture (EA) approach because of the potential benefits resulting from a more standardized and coordinated approach to systems development and management, and because of the tighter alignment of business and information technology in support of business strategy execution. At the same time, experience shows that having an effective EA practice is easier said than done and the coordination and implementation efforts can be daunting. While nobody disputes the potential benefits of well architected systems, there is no empirical evidence showing whether the organizational benefits of EA outweigh the coordination and management costs associated with the architecting process. Furthermore, most practitioners we have interviewed can provide technical metrics for internal EA efficiency and effectiveness, but none of our participants were able to provide concrete metrics or evidence about the bottom line impact that EA has on the organization as a whole. In this article we raise key issues associated with the evaluation of the organizational impact of EA and propose a framework for empirical research in this area.