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Boundaries and Boundary Objects: An Evaluation Framework for Mixed Methods Research

While mixed methods research is increasingly established as a methodological approach, researchers still struggle with boundaries arising from commitments to different methods and paradigms, and from attention to social justice. Combining two lines of work—social learning theory and the Imagine Program at the University of Brighton—we present an evaluation framework that was used to integrate the perspectives of multiple stakeholders in the program’s social interventions. We explore how this value-creation framework acts as a boundary object across boundaries of practice, specifically across quantitative and qualitative methods, philosophical paradigms, and participant perspectives. We argue that the framework’s focus on cycles of value creation provided the Imagine Program with a shared language for negotiating interpretation and action across those boundaries.

Analytics, Innovativeness, and Innovation Performance

Based on organizational information processing theory, this paper develops and tests a research model to deepen the understanding about the conditions under which the use of data analytics contributes to innovation performance. This paper suggests that firm innovativeness, as an organization cultural concept, should moderate the relationship between data analytics use and innovation performance. The results of a moderation analysis based on data from cross-sectional survey support this account. The findings indicate a significant inversely U-shaped effect of innovativeness on the relationship between data analytics use and innovation performance. The effect of data analytics use on innovation performance is strongest under medium levels of innovativeness but comparatively weaker when firms have a low or a high level of innovativeness. These insights contribute to the IS literature by clarifying the important role of firm cultural factors in shaping information needs and deployment of information processing capabilities.

Financial governance: accounting for social learning in a regional network in Africa

The value created by learning in communities of practice or networks is not always easy to articulate in ways that make sense to participants, sponsors, and stakeholders. Yet it is something that needs to be done, not only for monitoring and evaluation, but also for optimizing the learning of the community. We have developed a “value-creation framework” that focuses on how social learning makes a difference in the world via its effect on practice. The framework helps structure convincing accounts of the value of social learning by framing learning in terms of different cycles of value creation and loops between them. It integrates quantitative and qualitative data and can be used by professional evaluators as well as participants. In this paper we demonstrate the use of the framework in a project supported by the World Bank in Southern and Eastern Africa where it was used both for evaluation and for strategic renewal of a regional network of members of parliament and their clerks.

A Synthesis of Enterprise Architecture Effectiveness Constructs

Companies throughout the world use Enterprise Architecture (EA) because of benefits such as the alignment of business to Information Technology (IT), centralisation of decision making and cost reductions due to standardisation of business processes and business systems. Even though EA offers organisational benefits, EA projects are reported as being costly, time consuming and require tremendous effort. Companies therefore seek to ascertain ways to measure the effectiveness of EA implementation because of the money and time being spent on EA projects. EA Effectiveness refers to the degree in which EA helps to achieve the collective goals of the organisation and its measurement depends on a list of constructs that can be used to measure the effectiveness of EA implementation. Currently, there exist no comprehensive list of constructs that are suitable to measure the effectiveness of EA implementation. The paper reports on the results of a study that explored the development of a compreh ensive list of constructs suitable for measuring the effectiveness of EA implementation. The artefact developed in this research study is called Enterprise Architecture Effectiveness Constructs (EAEC). The EAEC consists of 6 constructs namely: – alignment

Generic EA Analysis Framework for the Definition and Automatic Execution of Analyses

Analysis is an essential part in the Enterprise Architecture Management lifecycle. An in-depth consideration of the architecture obtains its strengths and weaknesses. This provides a sound foundation for the future evolution of the architecture as well as for decision-making regarding new projects. Current literature provides a large number of different analysis approaches, targeting different goals and utilizing different techniques. To provide a common interface to analysis activities we studied the corresponding literature in previous research. Based on these results we develop a language for the definition of EA analyses as well as an execution environment for their evaluation. To cope with the high variety of meta models in the EA domain, the framework provides a uniform and tool independent access to analysis activities. Additionally it can be used to provide an EA analysis library, where the architect is able to select predefined analyses according to his specific requirements.

A Case Study of Stakeholder Concerns on EAM

As a result of growing complexities in business processes, information systems, and the technical infrastructure, a key challenge for enterprise architecture management (EAM) is to guide stakeholders from different hierarchical levels with heterogeneous concerns. EA deliverables, such as models or frameworks, are often highly comprehensive and standardized. However, these can hardly be applied without greater adaption. Although the literature selectively covers approaches for tailoring EA deliverables closer to the concerns of affected stakeholders, these approaches are often vague or not very differentiated. In the paper at hand, we aim at introducing a stakeholder perspective to EAM research that considers stakeholder concerns on EAM across hierarchical levels. To this end, we conduct a case study: Our results show homogenous concerns among stakeholders on EA deliverables. In turn, we found different concerns on the role of EAM in applying these deliverables, dependent on the hierarchical level of stakeholders. These findings stress the necessity for a more differentiated understanding of stakeholder concerns on EAM. Finally, we discuss the implications of our findings for an exemplary EAM approach.