Towards a framework for managing enterprise architecture acceptance

Abstract

An enterprise is a complex and changing entity, which is managed and maintained by humans. Enterprise architecture has been identified as an organisational strategy designed to assist enterprises with the understanding of complexity and the management of change. Acceptance, implementation and maintenance of enterprise architecture in organisations are complex and time-consuming. Work roles, responsibilities, common vocabulary, and buy-in are some of the cooperative human factors of stakeholders and participants and are believed to have an effect on the process of enterprise architecture acceptance in organisations. This study focused on identifying human factors affecting enterprise architecture acceptance and the question of how knowledge of these human factors can be used to assist organisations in the management of enterprise architecture acceptance. The research addressed two main research objectives: the development of a work-level-related model for enterprise architecture acceptance and a proposed method for assisting organisations with enterprise architecture acceptance. An initial set of human factors affecting enterprise architecture acceptance were identified through an exploratory study in one organisation. A study of existing literature was used to identify other human factors affecting enterprise architecture acceptance and to compile a more comprehensive list of human factors. The resulting comprehensive list of human factors was categorised into six constructed work-level-related human concerns and confirmed in more organisations. A work-level-related model for enterprise architecture acceptance was established based on the work-level-related human concerns and associated human factors. A method for organisational use and management of enterprise architecture acceptance based on the model was proposed. The result of the research is the Work-level acceptance framework for enterprise architecture (WoLAF for EA), which could contribute to understanding and managing the important aspect of human acceptance of enterprise architecture in organisations.