Search

Enterprise architecture (EA) is more of an applied discipline than a theoretical framework. This is mainly because it is expected to guide an organization’s practices, such as technology infrastruc...

Activity Theory (AT) is increasingly employed as a lens to guide data analysis in information systems (IS) studies. The theory is also applied to assess and evaluate information systems and technologies (IS/IT) in organisations. Even though its popularity continues to increase in both business and academic domains, there is no formal or assessment guide through which the theory can be applied, which makes it sometimes difficult or complicated. The challenge is significant and critical in that when applied, it influences and shapes the results of the phenomena being studied. This is a problem as results of studies cannot or should not be misconstrued or misrepresented. This study was undertaken to examine how the use of AT in IS studies can be made easy. Based on the findings, a three phase approach was developed and proposed, to guide: (i) the selection of AT in an IS/IT study; (ii) use of elements for data analysis; and (iii) how the elements can be linked with AT components in the analysis of qualitative data. The approach therefore provides a formal guide that can be followed, to ease the selection and application of AT in IS/IT studies as well as assessment of IS/IT artefacts in an organisation. The approach can be useful to researchers for data analysis and interpretation of results. Also, the guidelines can be employed by educators for teaching and learning in the areas of research.

Even though the interest in enterprise architecture (EA) has in recent years tremendously increased across industries, many organizations continue to encounter challenges, which affects the develop...

In many organisations, the deployment of information technologies (IT) encounters various challenges such as processes redesign, infrastructure redundancy, and lack of alignment between business processes and IT artefacts. These challenges impede organisations productivity and competitiveness. As a means to mitigate against the challenges, approaches, such as e-governance and IT governance have been employed and practised in some organisations over the years. However, the e-governance and IT governance brings about more complication through their conflicting and duplicating functions in their deployment and use, which is often caused by inability to draw distinction between the two approaches. The implication of the challenges includes the fact that it hampers selection, implementation, use and management of information systems and technologies (IS/IT) artefacts within an organisation. The challenges are more common in developing countries such as Namibia, owing to the newness of the concept in the environment. Thus, this study employed a desk research approach to understand the implication of practice in the interchangeable use of the terms. A total of 52 articles were collected. The keywords egovernance and IT governance) were used as the main search criteria (. All articles were collected from accredited journals databases, such as Emerald, IEEE Explore Digital Library and Proquest. The collected articles were analysed, following the interpretive stance. From the findings, we highlight the commonality and distinction between the e-governance and IT governance. The article therefore proposes ways in which the two concepts can be employed separately or complementarily, to manage IS/IT activities and business processes without conflicts, within an environment.

Due to the continual increase of the significance of information technology (IT), the need to provide governance in the deployment, use and management of the artefacts is simultaneously essential. However, even though different frameworks have been employed, the implementation of IT governance has never been easy for many organisations. This is attributed to many factors, such as people, process and technological artefacts. IT governance frameworks differ in one area or another, making their selection challenging for organisations. As a result, some organisations have more than one IT governance framework. This, on one hand, sometimes results in duplication of the frameworks’ functionalities, thereby adding to the environment complexity. On another hand, some IT governance frameworks are short of functions in regard to the organisation’s objectives. These challenges are attributed to the lack of an architectural framework, of consolidated best practices.

Government in both developed and developing countries strive to deliver effective and efficient services to its citizens. Hence the rapid increasing use of information technology to enhance service delivery. However, IT carries its own challenges, such as incompatibilities, lack of integration and lack of scalability. Many approaches, from both academic and professional domains have been employed to assess the challenges, for improvement purposes. Government of some countries have therefore introduced enterprise architecture (EA) to addressing IT challenges. Similarly, EA is influenced by many factors, making it not as easy as we are made to understand. Thus activity theory was applied to examine and understand how the challenges manifest into complexities, and in turn, have negative impacts on services delivery.

The goals of every organisation are unique. As a result, it is difficult to find a single Information Technology (IT) governance framework that will embrace functions of every organisation. This is attributed to the primary reason why organisations tend to select various (multiple) IT governance frameworks, for your processes and activities. However, many organisations later realised that some of the frameworks are very similar (duplications), and others are inappropriate. This evidently and inevitably cause complexities, and negatively impact return on investment in organisations. This highlights the need for an architectural framework which guides the selection and implementation of an appropriate framework, as presented and discussed in this paper. The qualitative, case study and interpretive method and approach were followed in conducting this research, which was to develop an architectural framework for the implementation of IT governance in the organisations. A South African organisation was used as a case, focusing on the IT division. The data collection method presented in this research was semi-structured interviews. Through a framework, the paper presents and discusses the fundamental factors, which influences the selection and implementation of IT governance in organisations. The factors include organisational needs, managing, assessment and innovation. These factors are influenced and do interacts with other tenets, which include adherence, competitiveness and sustainability, training and education, governance and compliance.

Purpose – In many organisations, the alignment between information technology (IT) and business is viewed as an important catalyst for the organisation's effectiveness and efficiency towards achieving a competitive advantage. Yet, a shared understanding between business and IT (the EA included) remains an issue in many organisations. The organisational structure affects the alignment between business and IT units. Conversely, a lack of alignment of both components (IT and business units) impedes organisations' capacity to increase and improve their productivity. Many studies have been conducted in the area of IT, EA and the organisational structure. There is, however, little evidence of work conducted in exploring the interface between organisational structure and EA prior to this study. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – A case-study research approach was employed to investigate the impact of organisational structure in the deployment of EA in organisations. Qualitative data were collected through semi-structure technique. The analysis was carried out, using structuration theory. Findings – The magnified data revealed some of unforeseen factors impeding the success of the EA deployment in the organisation. Originality/value – The work is original, and it has not been submitted or published anywhere else.

In organisations, human actions and structures are inseparable from processes and activities including in the development and implementation of the IT strategy. IT strategy is often intended to be driven by the organisational vision and strategy to achieve its goals periodically. IT has significant impact on an organisation's success or failure. It therefore does not operate in a vacuum. The issue is not just about information technology, rather, it is the strategic application of technology, including management, which is about people and the processes. The research applied Structuration Theory to examine the types of structures that exist during the development and implementation of IT strategy, and the structures that actually emerge as a result of human action in the computing environment of the organisation and through that, identify its impact. The primary aim of the research was to examine how cultural, policy and personal issues enable at the same time constrain activities in the computing environment during the development and implementation of IT strategy.

Many of the IT solutions in an organisation are employed through IT projects. Based on the reliance on IT solutions, organisations’ investment on IT projects has increased tremendously in the last two decades. This is informed and triggered by the premises that IT will help them to yield solutions that will fulfill or exceed their expectations, thereby make the organisation realise the required return on investment. Projects are a means to yield solutions through technological artefacts such as infrastructure (networks included), applications, databases or a combination of these. The technological artefacts do carries or are associated with foreseen or unforeseen risks. Hence proper risk identification and management on IT projects is necessitated to ensure that the organisation reaches its desire state. Unfortunately, risks are never easy to identify or manage. Using one case, the study employed actor-network theory in the analysis of the data to understand the factors which manifest themselves into risks during the deployment of IT projects in the organisation.

The reliance on information technology (IT) keeps increasing and rapidly as technology advances. Information technology has become so significant that it is critical to the success or failure of many organisations. Hence the organisations emphasises on strategy for IT, to enable and support their processes and activities, periodically. The IT strategy is influenced by many factors at both development and implementation levels. These factors enable and at the same time constraint during the development and implementation of the IT strategy in the organisation. The research examines the types of factors which exist during the development and implementation of IT strategy. This includes the roles of the factors and how they manifest to influence IT strategy. In achieving this object of the research, a case study method was employed and Structuration Theory was applied to examine the factors which emerge and how they impact the development and implementation of IT strategy in the organisation.

Increasingly, many organizations are highly dependent on support from Information Technology (IT). Even though Carr has controversially argued that IT does not matter, there seems to be prima facie evidence that even the most ambitious business vision still needs IT to enable it. As such, there has been much focus and emphasis on technologies, and less attention on non-technical components in the development and implementation of IT strategy. This study is focused on the connection between the technical and nontechnical, including the relationships between actors in the development and implementation of IT strategy. This article describes how Actor-Network Theory (ANT) was employed to investigate the impact of non-technical factors on the development and implementation of IT strategy in an organization. ANT was used as it can provide a useful perspective on the importance of relationships between both human and non-human actors. Another example: design and implementation of a B-B web portal, is offered for comparison.

The demand for better services by customers and citizens keeps increasing at a rapid rate, enabling organizations the leverage towards competitive advantage. The enterprise architecture (EA) has merged as a possible solution for addressing organizational challenges, as well as for competitiveness and sustainability. The EA deployment involves agents, which are both human and non-human. The agents, based on their interest, influences and determines how the EA is deployed. During the deployment of EA, agents transform themselves in accordance to their interest at the time and space, making the process challenging in achieving the organisational needs. As examined and presented by this chapter, understanding of agents' interests is significant if the challenges that they pose are to be managed for successful deployment of EA. The chapter presents the impact of agents on the deployment of EA in organizations, through the lens of structuration theory.

Through different approaches, organisations strive to evolve their competitiveness, as well as their addressing their operational and strategic needs. Some organisations employ Enterprise Architecture (EA), to bridge the gap between the business and IT, and to providing strategic goals. However, there exists scarcity of EA Skills in many developing countries. This could be attributed to the uniqueness of the discipline. The skills are instrumental in the development and implementation of the EA. What is even more challenging is that EA skills cannot be developed from any training facility, due to its nature of specialisation and seniority of the specialists. The limited training facilities contribute to the scarcity of EA skills in many developing countries, which have impact skill and transfer, and other resource developmental factors. This study therefore explored how and where EA skills can be developed, and what constitute the competency. The study was carried out in Namibia, using the survey technique, in the data collection. Some of the findings include education and training, leadership, and political implications on EA skill development.

The demand for better services by customers and citizens keeps increasing at a rapid rate. Different methods and techniques are sought by various organizations to enable and support processes and activities to improve services, as well as to give the organization leverage towards competitive advantage. The enterprise architecture (EA) has merged as a possible solution for addressing organizational challenges and for competitive advantage. The EA deployment involves agents, which are both human and non-human. The agents, based on their interest, influence and determine how the EA is deployed. During the deployment of EA, agents transform themselves in accordance to their interest at the time and space.

Organisations believe that IT projects are the key to deliver solution in any challenges they have. Consciously or unconsciously, many organisations focuses more on technology, and take for granted that IT Project does not happen in isolation. The deployments of IT projects are results of people's action which are carried out through processes. IT projects are intended for the support ad enabling of organisation's processes and activities, primarily for sustainability and competitive advantage. As these events (human actions and the processes that they followed) occur and reoccur, different kinds of risks are potential associates. Unfortunately, not all risks are visible or could be easily detected. Even those that are clearly diagnosed, are not as simple as thought in articulation and management. This could be attributed to lack of understanding of the root cause or its manifestations. Hence it was of vital importance to make use of a lens (of actor network theory) in the data analysis.

The information technology (IT) artefacts are deployed in the organization with the intention to enable and support the business objectives, processes and activities, for competitive advantage. This is done through projects towards a shared goal.The deployment of IT projects can be a cumbersome exercise. Different methods and approaches have been tried in the last decades. Many studies have been conducted, yet the challenges seem to remain. Academics and industry practitioners have identified some factors as cause for the failure of IT projects. What has not actually been examined is what manifests those factors, the root of the cause.

Many organizations adopt cyclical processes to articulate and engineer technological responses to their business needs. Their objective is to increase competitive advantage and add value to the organization's processes, services and deliverables, in line with the organization's vision and strategy. The major challenges in achieving these objectives include the rapid changes in the business and technology environments themselves, such as changes to business processes, organizational structure, architectural requirements, technology infrastructure and information needs. No activity or process is permanent in the organization. To achieve their objectives, some organizations have adopted an Enterprise Architecture (EA) approach, others an Information Technology (IT) strategy approach, and yet others have adopted both EA and IT strategy for the same primary objectives. The deployment of EA and IT strategy for the same aims and objectives raises question whether there is conflict in adopting both approaches. The paper and case study presented here, aimed at both academics and practitioners, examines how EA could be employed as IT strategy to address both business and IT needs and challenges.

Organisations’ reliance on Information Technology (IT) is rapidly increasing. IT strategy is developed and implemented for particular purposes by different organizations. We should therefore expect that there will be network of actors within the computing environment, and that such network of actors will be the key to understanding many otherwise unexpected situations during the development and implementation of IT strategy. This network of actors has aligned interests. Many organizations are developing and implementing their IT strategy, while little is known about the network of actors and their impacts, which this paper reveals. This paper describes how Actor-Network Theory (ANT) was employed to investigate the impact of network of actors on the development and implementation of IT strategy in an organisation. ANT was used as it can provide a useful perspective on the importance of relationships between both human and non-human actors. Another example: design and implementation of a B-B web portal, is offered for comparison.

A satisfactory account of the interwoven distinction between information systems (IS) and information technology (IT) is lacking, at least on an empirical basis. To this point, the terms IS and IT are often used loosely and interchangeably, even by professionals within the two fields and beyond. There is prima facie evidence that the inadequate distinction between the two concepts may have an impact on the processes, activities and structure in the computing environment of an organization. Through interpretive case study, this paper explores opportunities to gain insights into whether the interchangeable use of the terms IS and IT is as result of ignorance or practical unconsciousness. The paper focuses on the implications of the interplay, rather than the fact that this interplay exists.

— Despite impressive technical advances in tools and methodologies and the organizational insights provided by many years of academic and business researches, the underperformance of Information Technology (IT) remains.In the past and even today, organizations experience difficulty in managing technology, changing from system to system, implementing new technology, maintaining compatibility with existing technologies, and changing from one business process to another. These problems impact significantly on business performance and will continue to do so if not addressed. As a result, many organizations have deployed EA in an attempt to address these challenges. However, the design and development of EA has proven to be easier than its institutionalization. The study explored the development and implementation of EA to determine the factors, which are barriers to its institutionalization. Two case studies were conducted.