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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.

Ambidexterity as a dynamic capability: Resolving the innovator’s dilemma

How do organizations survive in the face of change? Underlying this question is a rich debate about whether organizations can adapt—and if so how. One perspective, organizational ecology, presents evidence suggesting that most organizations are largely inert and ultimately fail. A second perspective argues that some firms do learn and adapt to shifting environmental contexts. Recently, this latter view has coalesced around two themes. The first, based on research in strategy suggests that dynamic capabilities, the ability of a firm to reconfigure assets and existing capabilities, explains long-term competitive advantage. The second, based on organizational design, argues that ambidexterity, the ability of a firm to simultaneously explore and exploit, enables a firm to adapt over time. In this paper, we review and integrate these comparatively new research streams and identify a set of propositions that suggest how ambidexterity acts as a dynamic capability. We suggest that efficiency and innovation need not be strategic tradeoffs and highlight the substantive role of senior teams in building dynamic capabilities.

Organizational Ambidexterity in Action: How Managers Explore and Exploit

Dynamic capabilities have been proposed as a useful way to understand how organizations are able to adapt to changes in technology and markets. Organizational ambidexterity, the ability of senior managers to seize opportunities through the orchestration and integration of existing assets to overcome inertia and path dependence, is a core dynamic capability. While promising, research on dynamic capabilities and ambidexterity has not yet been able to specify the specific mechanisms through which senior managers are actually able to reallocate resources and reconfigure assets to simultaneously explore and exploit. Using interviews and qualitative case studies from thirteen organizations, this article explores the actions senior managers took to implement ambidextrous designs and identify which ones helped or hindered them in their attempts. A set of interrelated choices of organization design and senior team process determine which attempts to build ambidextrous organizations are successful.

The Ambidextrous Organization

Corporate executives must constantly look backward, attending to the products and processes of the past, while also gazing forward, preparing for the innovations that will define the future. This mental balancing act is one of the toughest of all managerial challenges – it requires executives to explore new opportunities even as they work diligently to exploit existing capabilities – and it’s no surprise that few companies do it well. But as every businessperson knows, there are companies that do. What’s their secret? These organizations separate their new, exploratory units from their traditional, exploitative ones, allowing them to have different processes, structures, and cultures, at the same time, they maintain tight links across units at the senior executive level. Such ambidextrous organizations, as the authors call them, allow executives to pioneer radical or disruptive innovations while also pursuing incremental gains. Of utmost importance to the ambidextrous organization are ambidextrous managers – executives who have the ability to understand and be sensitive to the needs of very different kinds of businesses. They possess the attributes of rigorous cost cutters and free-thinking entrepreneurs while also maintaining the objectivity required to make difficult trade-offs. Almost every company needs to renew itself through the creation of breakthrough products and processes, but it shouldn’t do so at the expense of its traditional business. Building an ambidextrous organization is by no means easy, but the structure itself, combining organizational separation with senior team integration, is not difficult to understand. Given the executive will to make it happen, any company can become ambidextrous.

The Antecedents, Consequences, and Mediating Role of Organizational Ambidexterity

We investigated contextual organizational ambidexterity, defined as the capacity to simultaneously achieve alignment and adaptability at a business-unit level. Building on the leadership and organization context literatures, we argue that a context characterized by a combination of stretch, discipline, support, and trust facilitates contextual ambidexterity. Further, ambidexterity mediates the relationship between these contextual features and performance. Data collected from 4,195 individuals in 41 business units supported our hypotheses.