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National enterprise architectures (NEA)

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PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to understand why, and under which circumstances, enterprise architecture (EA) planning adoption improves information systems (IS) planning and supports administrative transformation in government.Design/methodology/approachAbout 12 cases in the USA were approached with a preliminary theoretical framework derived from the extant literature. Theory building had affinities with grounded‐theory approaches and came out of numerous iterations between the “deep cases” and the extant theory.FindingsThree adoption patterns illustrate that the adoption of a new IS planning innovation does not create administrative or political transformation in itself. Compliance and imitation primarily drives the adoption process, while fundamental transformation to the tasks performed in government is only achieved if the institutional force at the micro‐and macro‐level promotes transformation.Research limitations/implicationsThe neoinstitutional perspective proposed can be of value to other IS researchers as a basis for empirical work in other situations; the implications of the case study can be taken as starting point for further research into the important topic of IS‐based administrative transformation.Practical implicationsThe research illustrate that EA adoption is an emergent, evolving, embedded, fragmented, and provisional social production that is shaped as much by cultural and structural forces in the organizational context in which they are implemented as rational technical and economic ones. The findings helps public organizations better understand and manage the adoption of new IS planning innovations.Originality/valueIn the IS literature, very few have recognized the contribution of “new” institutional theory. Thus, this paper helps us understand how administrative and political transformation is adopted in government from a new perspective.

Traditionally, government agencies are organized vertically around functional structures and there are almost no processes spanning departments and agencies. In such an environment, the coordination of business processes and integration of underlying information systems presents a significant challenge. Using case studies in three European countries, this research explores process and systems integration challenges in the European public sector and highlight opportunities for service improvement in the context of e-government implementation. While crossorganizational process and information systems integration barriers are seen in the literature as presenting the main technical challenge for realizing fully integrated e-government services, this research found that a legacy of rigid bureaucracy, established illogical routine tasks and lack of coordination of different information systems in the public sector were preventing the respective governments from expediting their e-government initiatives in Europe.