The Structuring of Enterprise Architecture Functions in Organizations: Towards a Systematic Theory

Enterprise architecture (EA) practice is a complex set of organizational activities enabling well-coordinated business and IT planning. Organizationally, EA practices are implemented by specialized EA functions, which have existed in many companies in some or the other form for decades. However, the problem of structuring EA functions according to the specific needs of organizations received almost no attention in the literature. To address this gap, 47 organizations and their EA functions were analyzed. Using the grounded theory method, the study develops a comprehensive theoretical model explaining the dependence between the relevant properties of organizations and the structures of their EA functions, including the appropriate numbers of architects, their specialization and structural alignment. This study offers arguably the first full-fledged theory on the structuring of EA functions and also addresses multiple practical questions that are likely to be asked by IT leaders willing to establish EA functions in their organizations.