The fragmentation of the public sector makes it difficult to manage strategically and architecturally as a whole. Enterprise Architecture (EA) is considered as an improvement to that. Architectural modeling and visualization of the general management strategy plans along with parallel database development in a local government forms the primary data in the longitudinal case study using Action Design Research Method. To find a proper organizational fit for the EA framework in public sector, we reflect on how the current state architectural descriptions got organized in situ in a deep corporate hierarchy, and what were the emerging management needs in reorganizing the content of the descriptions. We suggest the EA framework in public sector as a strategic corporate management tool. As for the current state EA descriptions, we propose implementing the framework not as a static, but as a dynamic data model of the current management structures.

Based on our research concerning enterprise architecture (EA) in the Finnish public sector, we discuss how EA concept and tool need to be developed to support government business ecosystem and organization design. Our research context indicates, beyond a federal government or a state one, that even a single municipality, like a city concern, can be perceived as an ecosystem of its sectoral domains, subsidiaries and such. We outline a vision of an overall ontology-based, shared EA repository for the-whole-of-government current state descriptions and specify the central design principles and functional requirements for such a system, illustrating some potential use cases of it. Based on interview data from four smart city cases in Finland, we suggest a management model for the government ecosystem architecture target state design, specifically a design process for co-creating new services in the ecosystem. Further, we outline some principles for government ecosystem architecture management.