MEASURING THE IMPACT OF ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE

Enterprise architecture frameworks provide a basis to systematically document and manage the information technology assets of an organization. Numerous frameworks have emerged to support large scale organizations and government entities but to date there h

MEASURING THE IMPACT OF ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE

Sheila Cane, The MITRE Corporation, Sheila@http://doc.guandang.net

Richard McCarthy, Quinnipiac University, Richard.mccarthy@quinnipiac.edu

ABSTRACT

Enterprise architecture frameworks provide a basis to systematically document and manage the information technology assets of an organization. architecture frameworks meet the task needs of their users to facilitate transformational organizational change.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Numerous frameworks have emerged to support large scale organizations and government entities but to date there has been no empirical support to determine if they meet the needs of their users. We present a research model to enable empirical testing of the extent to which enterprise architecture frameworks support the task needs of their users. This model extends the existing task-technology fit research by combining the benefits of organizational technology fit with inpidual task needs. Further, it extends enterprise architecture research by providing a theoretical model to assess the fit of enterprise architecture frameworks.

Keywords: Task-technology fit, enterprise architecture, information systems strategy

INTRODUCTION

Enterprise architecture (EA) frameworks have been defined by Zachman [12], Spewak [10], and the United States Department of Defense [2] among others. These frameworks are used to enhance an organization’s ability to promote transformational organizational change to model organizational processes, identify candidate process for change, and identify computer functions and systems to be used to implement those changes [7]. Enterprise archgitecture is a relatively new concept that has exploded onto the IT community and is emerging as a significant discipline within many large IT organizations. Several commercial entities have developed software tools for the enterprise architect’s use. While the tools may implement the frameworks, it is not clear whether these frameworks (and by implication, the tools), meet the needs of their users to identify areas for change, help to specify computer systems to implement those changes, and whether the changes actually result in organizational performance improvement. This research applies the task-technology fit concepts found in Goodhue [3], Goodhue and Thompson [4], Dishaw and Strong [1], Zigurs and Buckland [13], and Khazanchi [6] to develop a model to determine if enterprise

Volume VIII, No. 2, 2007 Task Technology Fit

Goodhue [3] theorized that an information system having task-technology fit would lead to increased inpidual performance. Goodhue and Thompson [4] developed the technology-to-performance chain model, shown in Figure 1, to investigate how technology can affect an inpidual’s performance. Goodhue and Thompson [4] operationalized task-technology fit as user evaluation and specified the task-technology fit construct as consisting of the following variables: data quality, locatability of data, authorization to access data, data compatibility between systems, training and ease of use, production timeliness, systems reliability, and information systems relationship with users. Goodhue and Thompson [4] found strong support that the data-related factors of task-technology fit predict perceived performance impacts, and that both utilization and task-technology fit must be included to predict performance.

Figure 1 Goodhue and Thompson's [4] Technology-to-Performance Chain Model

Where Goodhue and Thompson [4] operationalized task-technology fit as user evaluation, Dishaw and Strong [1] operationalized task-technology fit in the context of software maintenance tools using the statistical method of computing fit as the interaction of task needs and technology functions. Further differing from Goodhue and Thompson’s [4] list of task-technology fit factors, Dishaw and Strong’s [1]

437 Issues in Information Systems

Enterprise architecture frameworks provide a basis to systematically document and manage the information technology assets of an organization. Numerous frameworks have emerged to support large scale organizations and government entities but to date there h

Measuring the impact of enterprise architecture

method depended on the ability to directly specify the technology functions and task needs to be measured. Dishaw and Strong [1] used survey questions from the software maintenance literature (Vessey, 1986; Henderson & Cooprider, 1990; in Dishaw & Strong, 1998) to operationalize task-technology fit as the dimensions of production fit and coordination fit, where production fit is the interaction of software maintenance tool production functions with software maintenance tasks, and coordination fit is the interaction of software maintenance coordination

Khazanchi [6] operationalized performance by using subject matter expert (SME) assessment of relative benefits realized through the adoption and integration of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI). Relative benefits were assessed using a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1: ‘substantially deteriorated (or decreased)’ to 3: ‘no change’ to 5: ‘substantially improved (or increased). The potential EDI benefits identified by Khazanchi [6] are listed in Table 1.

tools functions with software maintenance coordination tasks.

Zigurs and Buckland [13] operationalized task-technology fit in the context of group support systems as task and technology alignments, testing for the effects of task-technology fit on group p …… 此处隐藏：26428字，全部文档内容请下载后查看。喜欢就下载吧 ……