Förändringar i affärsvärlden leder till att företag idag ständigt ställs inför nya utmaningar. Samverkan mellan affärsverksamheten och IT har därför blivit en viktig aspekt inom organisationer. Företag står inför problemet att hantera sina komplexa affärsprocesser, information och infrastruktur, relaterat till att IT bör ge maximala värden för affärsprocesserna. Det för att verksamheterna ska vara med i spelet bland de konkurrenskraftiga organisationerna, vilket leder till en av anledningar till att företagen kommer i kontakt med Enterprise Architecture (EA). EA kan ses som en helhetsbild av organisationen och dess information, applikationer och infrastruktur. Relaterat till EA, kan EA-ramverk vara till hjälp för att få ett strukturerat arbetssätt. För att förbättra arbetet med EA hjälper ramverket till att kartlägga verksamhetsmiljön, processer och IT. Existensen av ett stort antal olika ramverk och de olika perspektiven på om ett ramverk är ett måste eller inte för verksamheten vid EA-arbetet, kan problematisera processen för verksamheter att veta om det ska välja ett ramverk och vilka effekter det skulle ge. Vi ser därför ett behov att av undersöka ramverkets roll i ett praktiskt EA-arbete. Studien är baserad på antaganden av en empirisk studie bestående av sex stycken Enterprise arkitekter. Enterprise arkitekterna har delat sina vyer av deras arbete med EA och ramverk. Resultatet av den empiriska studien visar att ramverkets roll kan dras utifrån tre perspektiv. Hur ramverket har implementerats, kopplat till hur det används utgör grunden för vilken roll ramverket har i det praktiska arbetet. Forskningens slutsatser visar att ramverket kan ses som; ett hjälpmedel för arkitekten, en inkörsport för det övergripande EA-arbetet och slutligen som ett hjälpmedel för en personlig karriärutveckling. / Program: Systemvetarutbildningen

I samband med dagens lågkonjunktur, ökade globalisering samt en ökandekonkurrensmarknad tillkommer en ökad komplexitet av verksamheter. Det är även viktigt för dagens verksamheter att öka sina resurser och minska sina kostnader samtidigt som de skall öka sina vinster. För att motverka komplexiteten och maximera vinsten behövs nya, fler och innovativa IT-lösningar. Användning av ett arkitektuellt ramverk som Zachmans kan vara till fördel i en verksamhet, dock är det en investering som i sig kan vara kostsam ochtidskrävande, det är därmed viktigt för verksamhetens ledning och medarbetare att försöka tänka långsiktigt istället för kortsiktigt och se till hur en användning av ramverket kan vara till nytta för verksamheten. Efter en teoriinsamling och intervjuer med experter på området, gårdet att konstatera att trots vissa kritiska ställningstaganden mot ramverket Zachman, har en användning av ramverket ändå full kapacitet att påverka ekonomin i en verksamhet. Ramverket är stort och det finns mycket att hämta, det har som syfte att bringa ordning och reda i en verksamhet och skapa gemensamma synsätt och värderingar. Förbättrad ordning och struktur är faktorer som genererar i ökad effektivisering i form av minskade risker och minskade kostnader. / Program: Kandidatutbildning i informatik

We believe there to be a possible problem with Enterprise Architecture, in that in using standardizations such as frameworks stifles creativity and innovations, focusing on IT-environments. This assumption is not new as there already are thoughts in existence on this subject, each side discussing if there is a fault or not. Out of our own interest we delve deeper into the subject of Enterprise Architecture to see if there is any truth in our assumption and to see if there is anything anyone can do to compensate or solve this perceived problem. We look into what Enterprise Architecture consists of and examine four different popular frameworks associated with it: TOGAF, FEA, Gartner and Zachman. We learn about creativity in Information Systems organizations and its connection to IT. Our research strategy for this thesis is deduction together with two separate phases, one phase is exploratory and the other descriptive. We examine the nature of creativity and innovation, there too with an emphasis on IT. In order to find out if our assumption is correct we seek out literature, articles and other sources of information on innovations, creativity and frameworks. Armed with this information we seek out and perform interviews with people from large commercial organizations who have hands-on work experience working with Enterprise Architecture in order to see if our assumptions have any form of validity and to gain some insight into the subject matter. The method components for this thesis are literature review, document study and interviews. Analyzed with the help of SWOT we use the data gathered from the interviews to gain a visual representation of the results, to see the pros and cons of Enterprise Architecture. The results show that supplements or tools are used in order to produce or support business innovations, using departments, business related social networks or techniques to compensate. Hampering factors for business innovation can be internal conflicts, struggles between different groups for different EA solutions. Promoting business innovation through EA can come from mixing framework bits together, giving the result of a flexible and adaptive framework. It can also come from acting as a common language and a bridge between different hierarchies. EA aids with difficult decisions, evaluating which alternatives for realization and the order services are realized. Meetings can be used to compensate the lack of creativity and innovation rising from EA. A negative consequence of EA can occur during implementation of things related to EA in larger companies. No examples of companies that failed with creating business innovation in their IT with EA were found. / Program: Kandidatutbildning i informatik

Despite over 50 years of software engineering as a formal practice, contemporary developers of bespoke software follow development practices that result in low-quality products with high development and maintenance costs. This qualitative case study sought to identify strategies used by software and enterprise architects for applying architectural best practices to improve bespoke software quality and lower the total cost of ownership. The study population was application and enterprise architects associated with delivering bespoke software for the enterprise architecture team at a large enterprise in the Nashville, Tennessee metropolitan area. Interview data were collected from 7 enterprise or solution architects; in addition, 47 organizational documents were gathered. Guided by the principles of total quality management, thematic analysis was used to identify codes and themes related to management of quality in software solutions. Prominent themes included focusing on customer satisfaction, collaborating and communicating with all stakeholders, and defining boundaries and empowering people within those boundaries. The findings from this research have implications for positive social change, including improved work-life balance, morale, and productivity of software and enterprise architects through streamlining development and maintenance activities.

The process of digitalisation is progressively transforming the way business is carried out and how enterprises collaborate. In this digital age, characterised by collaborations among a larger community of suppliers, customers, employees, and governments, all partners need to understand avariety of relations and how digitalisation transforms them. However, it is difficult to understand the multitude of unclear or even unknown relations generated by re-coordinating different types of relations in this digital age. Accordingly, this thesis contributes to the understanding of the transformation of business collaboration by exploring how collaboration can be understood in a digital age. The theoretical concepts involved collaboration, enterprise architecture, enterprise interoperability, and boundary object. These concepts enabled digging deeper into the complexity of sharing and aligning social and cultural worlds between communities of practice. The methodology employed was hermeneutics, which was suitable for understanding human activities. The study object concerned national development of data hubs for the electricity market in Denmark and Sweden, which replaced an old way of communicating point to point between companies. This was implemented in order to coordinate and manage data transactions between grid companies and electricity suppliers. The results indicated that digitalisation tends to increase the ability to manage collaboration and even closer relations among partners by clearly identifying every partner role and responsibility. Further, business collaboration appeared to transform from a traditional collaboration to a multi-relation collaboration that addressed digital age demands more comprehensively. / <p>Vid tidpunkten för framläggningen av avhandlingen var följande delarbete opublicerat: delarbete 2 (accepterat).</p><p>At the time of the defence the following paper was unpublished: paper 2 (accepted).</p>

The increased demand from citizens for efficient service delivery from public sector organizations has implications for the information that underpins those services. Robust and effective information management is required. Information is looked upon as a resource that can give organizations a competitive edge if it is well leveraged. To address the need for more services and for more efficient service delivery, the Swedish government has promoted e-government initiatives and the two municipalities that are the subjects of this research have responded by engaging in e-service development and provision. e-Government has at its core the use of information and communication technology (ICT).  The municipalities have embarked on the analysis and automation of their business processes and hence the use of information systems.  Web-based technologies have created a two-way communication flow which has generated complex information for the municipalities to address. This development calls for stronger information and records management regimes. Enterprise Content Management is a new information management construct proposed to help organizations to deal with all their information resources. It promotes enterprise-wide information management. There is, however, little knowledge and understanding of ECM in the Swedish public sector. Further, how e-government developments have affected the management of information is an issue that has not been explored. Traditionally Swedish public authorities have employed records management to address the challenges of managing information. Records management has been used for the effective and systematic capture of records and the maintenance of their reliability and authenticity. While information helps with the daily running of business activities, records carry the evidentiary value of the interactions between the citizens and the municipalities. This research critically examines the interface between Enterprise Content Management (ECM) and records management as information/records management approaches. This has meant examining what the similarities and the differences between the two approaches are.  The research instrumentally used the lens of the Records Continuum Model (RCM), which promotes the management of the entire records’ continuum, a proactive approach, combines the management of archives and records and supports the pluralisation of the captured records. The research further highlights the information management challenges that the municipalities are facing as they engage in e-government developments.    Keywords: Enterprise Content Management, Records Management, E-government, Long-term Preservation, Business Process Management, Enterprise Architecture. / Centre for Digital Information Management

Most large enterprises are facing numerous challenges concerning their information systems, IS, and information and communication technology, ICT. Today, many enterprises employ a considerable number of applications that often have redundant functionality. There is also a large diversification in the ICT products and technologies employed. Further, integration costs are a major issue in almost all acquisition projects and many enterprises experience a lack of data quality and information security. The list of IS/ICT management challenges can be made much longer. At most enterprises, IS/ICT decisions are made by autonomous business units. In order to change the situation described above and build a more cost-effective IS/ICT environment, all business units need to make consistent IS/ICT decisions. Distributed and consistent decisions can only be made if the decision maker knows which decisions to make and why he/she needs to make them. The latter can be described by the target architecture for the whole enterprise IS/ICT, the information needed to conduct the business and its relationship to the business processes and business organization together with the benefits that the target architecture provides to the business. Which decisions to make are formulated into architectural principles, i.e. rules that express how your enterprise needs to design and deploy IS/ICT. The present thesis is a composite thesis including eight papers. The first four papers describe the reference model for IS/ICT management responsibilities that is one of the outcomes of the present research. Two different surveys have been performed in order to find out what the major IS/ICT management challenges are. The first survey was answered by 62 Swedish Chief Information Officers, CIOs, from large private enterprises as well as municipalities. The second survey was answered by twelve CIO’s from the European electric power industry. In the fifth paper, one of the IS/ICT management responsibilities, i.e. data quality, is used to illustrate how the IS/ICT manager’s responsibilities can be decomposed into measurable units. Over 70 respondents were used in order to perform an enterprise- wide measurement of the data quality at a Swedish insurance company. The last three papers are devoted to architectural principles. Architectural principles are introduced and guidelines on how to define and manage them are proposed in the sixth paper. The guidelines have been used in a review of Vattenfall’s architectural principles. In the last two papers, architectural principles and the reference model are combined in a methodology for assessing the enterprise architecture. The methodology has been used in two different case studies, one at Vattenfall and one at Scania. In both case studies multiple information systems were assessed from many different viewpoints resulting in that many respondents were interviewed. / QC 20100908

Information is an important business asset in today’s enterprises. Hence enterprise information security is an important system quality that must be carefully managed. Although enterprise information security is acknowledged as one of the most central areas for enterprise IT management, the topic still lacks adequate support for decision making on top-management level. This composite thesis consists of four articles which presents the Enterprise Information Security Assessment Method (EISAM), a comprehensive method for assessing the current state of the enterprise information security. The method is useful in helping guide top-management’s decision-making because of the following reasons: 1) it is easy to understand, 2) it is prescriptive, 3) it is credible, and 4) it is efficient. The assessment result is easy to understand because it presents a quantitative estimate. The result can be presented as an aggregated single value, abstracting the details of the assessment. The result is easy to grasp and enables comparisons both within the organization and in terms of industry in general. The method is prescriptive since it delivers concrete and traceable measurements. This helps guide top-level management in their decisions regarding enterprise-wide information security by highlighting the areas where improvements efforts are essential. It is credible for two reasons. Firstly, the method presents an explicit and transparent definition of enterprise information security. Secondly, the method in itself includes an indication of assessment uncertainty, expressed in terms of confidence levels. The method is efficient because it focuses on important enterprise information security aspects, and because it takes into account how difficult it is to find security related evidence. Being resource sparse it enables assessments to take place regularly, which gives valuable knowledge for long-term decision-making. The usefulness of the presented method, along with its development, has been verified through empirical studies at a leading electric power company in Europe and through statistical surveys carried out among information security experts in Sweden. The success from this research should encourage further researcher in using these analysis techniques to guide decisions on other enterprise architecture attributes. / QC 20101028

IT services are increasingly being offered via a shared service model. This model promises the benefits of centralization and consolidation, as well as an increased customer satisfaction. Adopting shared services is not easy as it necessitates a major organizational change, with few documented exemplars to guide managers. This research explores a public IT unit’s realization of shared services with the intent to improve the transparency of its value proposition to their stakeholders. An ethnographic field study enabled in-situ data collection over a 24-month period. We analyzed the resulting, rich process data using the Punctuated Socio-Technical IS Change (PSIC) model. This resulted in several contributions: an explanatory account of shared services realization, an empirically grounded punctuated process model with seventeen critical incidents, and twelve key lessons for practitioners. Several extensions to extant process research methods are developed. These contributions combine to form a detailed and nuanced understanding of the process of realizing IT shared services at a large public university over a multi-year period.

Management guru Peter Drucker once claims that the management philosophy is to achieve a comprehensive system for the effective management of enterprise principles, procedures, and practices.Being exposed to intense competitions, financial risks, and internal requirements, without a standard to follow health care industry shall not be able to advantageously record various types of documents, causing the complicated paperwork. Also if there are blurred responsibilities among the various departments, less medical and process efficiency, health care industry shall not be lead to the direction towards sustainability. This research adopts structure-behavior coalescence (SBC) as the core service-oriented modeling method to examine patients, physicians, and resources generated by the relationship among them. We use ¡§service¡¨ as the basic construction unit, combining with enterprise architecture and information technology, to build a service-oriented medical business management model (SOMBMM). The results of this research are the following: 1. Modeling step is top-down, at different levels to describe its related services, also echo the corporate bottom-up strategy; 2. Enhance business owner for medical business understanding, enhance manager for business planning and organizational restructuring of the effectiveness and efficiency; 3. When it comes the enterprise strategy revision, structural changes or behavioral updates, service-oriented plays as the best tool; 4. Each service clearly shows all its operations, human resources and manpower, and then fully under control; 5. Service, operation names and input and output data are well delineated after the information system¡¦s analysis, this shall reduce the effort to communicate with users; 6. Using icons that make managers easy to understand, reducing the cost of education. The contribution of this research is to provide business managers a modern management model and to enhance management capacity, no longer need the experience, quickly getting familiarity with the business to improve administrative efficiency.