Context

Enterprise architecture (EA) is a collection of artifacts describing various aspects of an organization from an integrated business and IT perspective. EA practice is an organizational activity that implies using EA artifacts for facilitating decision-making and improving business and IT alignment. EA practice involves numerous participants ranging from C-level executives to project teams and effective engagement between these stakeholders and architects is critically important for success. Moreover, many practical problems with EA practice can be also attributed to insufficient engagement between architects and other EA stakeholders. However, the notion of engagement received only limited attention in the EA literature and the problem of establishing engagement has not been intentionally studied.

Objective

This paper intends to explore in detail the problem of achieving effective engagement between architects and other EA stakeholders in an organization, identify the main inhibitors of engagement and present a theoretical model explaining the problem of establishing engagement in practice.

Method

This paper is based on a single in-depth revelatory case study including nine interviews with different participants of EA practice (e.g. architects and other EA stakeholders) and documentation analysis. It leverages the grounded theory method to construct a conceptual model explaining the problem of engagement in the studied organization.

Results

This paper identifies 28 direct and indirect inhibitors of engagement and unifies them into a holistic conceptual model addressing the problem of achieving engagement that covers the factors undermining both strategic and initiative-based engagement between architects and other EA stakeholders.

Conclusions

This paper focuses on the notion of engagement and offers arguably the first available theoretical model that explains how typical engagement problems between architects and other stakeholders inhibit the realization of value from EA practice. However, the developed model has a number of limitations and we call for further empirical research on engagement problems in EA practice and coping strategies for addressing these problems.

中文翻译：

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利益相关者参与企业架构实践：存在哪些阻碍因素？

语境

企业体系结构（EA）是从集成的业务和IT角度描述组织各个方面的工件的集合。EA实践是一种组织活动，它意味着使用EA工件来促进决策制定并改善业务与IT的一致性。EA的实践涉及从C级高管到项目团队的众多参与者，这些利益相关者与架构师之间的有效参与对于成功至关重要。此外，EA实践中的许多实际问题也可归因于建筑师与其他EA利益相关者之间的参与不足。但是，参与的概念在EA文献中仅受到了有限的关注，并且尚未有意识地研究建立参与的问题。

客观的

本文旨在详细探讨在组织中的架构师与其他EA利益相关者之间实现有效参与的问题，确定参与的主要障碍，并提出一种理论模型来解释在实践中建立参与的问题。

方法

本文基于单个深入的启示性案例研究，包括对EA实践的不同参与者（例如，架构师和其他EA利益相关者）进行的九次访谈和文档分析。它利用扎根的理论方法来构建一个概念模型，解释参与研究组织的问题。

结果

本文确定了28种直接和间接参与的阻碍因素，并将它们统一为一个整体概念模型，以解决实现参与的问题，其中涵盖了破坏建筑师与其他EA利益相关者之间基于战略和主动参与的因素。

结论

本文着重于参与的概念，可以说是第一个可用的理论模型，该模型解释了建筑师和其他利益相关者之间的典型参与问题如何阻碍EA实践的价值实现。但是，已开发的模型有很多局限性，我们要求对EA实践中的参与问题以及解决这些问题的应对策略进行进一步的实证研究。