Where enterprise architecture development fails a multiple case study of governmental organizations

Abstract

Enterprise Architecture (EA) adoption by governmental organizations has been substantially increased not only to improve performance and efficiency, but as a prerequisite to E-Government implementation. Many efforts have been done to create frameworks and methodologies for government sector organizations to develop EA smoothly and flawlessly. Based on a survey in 2004, governmental organizations in Iran had been among the top ten countries in EA activities but since then it has faced with an ongoing decline. Therefore, the goal of this study is to investigate the obstacles that governmental organizations have encountered in recent years during EA development. Employing multiple case study approach, the data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 9 governmental organizations in Iran. In total, 18 obstacles were identified. Moreover, a priority framework was created to determine the precedence in addressing these obstacles. In analogy to previous literature, five of the identified obstacles have not been mentioned in the earlier literature. This study is a great assist for both practitioners and researchers because of the essentials of digital capability in the success of businesses and EA being the central competence area in digital transformation.

The Role of Top Management Commitment in Enterprise Architecture Development in Governmental Organizations

“…This study identified 17 EA development obstacles by investigating the process of EA development in 9 governmental organizations in Iran. Moreover, comparing the findings with the literature [23]- [32], [47], [54]- [61], this research reveals five obstacles that have been neglected in the previous studies: political issues of the government, change of management, outdated organizational statutes, lack of motivation among personnel, and EA conflict with governmental laws.…”

“…Many studies have discussed EA challenges in governmental organizations [11], [12], [23]- [32]. The aim of this study is first, to increase the understanding of EA development obstacles in governmental organizations and second, to look for a core category with the highest priority when addressing EA obstacles.…”

Understanding Challenges of Applying Enterprise Architecture in Public Sectors: A Technology Acceptance Perspective

“…Therefore, we plan to perform a more systematic review to further prove our findings. Second, although we have grouped the majority of the reported challenges using TAM, there are still few challenges falling out of current model such as "old infrastructure [16] ". Further investigation on such challenges might be a useful complementation or enrichment to current model.…”

“…Concrete evidences regarding challenges of applying EA were presented. In each research, the word "challenge" or its synonyms such as "hindering factors" [15] or "obstacles" [16] were explicitly mentioned.…”

Factors Influencing Communication and Collaboration in Enterprise Architecture Development

“…Enterprise Architecture (EA) development projects encounter different challenges, and not all of these projects end with success [26]. Challenges like the lack of establishing proper EA governance [13], lack of shared understanding [24], lack of leaders' trust [2], organizational politics [6], no management support [11], EA artifacts being outdated and of low quality [20], sabotaging the EA development by giving wrong information [21], and communication and collaboration challenges [3,6,13] have been identified. Thus, it is not surprising to see that 66 percent of EA projects did not fulfill the expectations of surveyed organizations [26].…”