Bala Iyer

The four-domain architecture: an approach to support enterprise architecture design

Managing an enterprise architecture is a challenging task. While careful planning typically goes into its design, an enterprise architecture actually emerges as a result of implementing individual projects. It is this de facto architecture, not the conceptual one, that provides the capabilities for executing business strategies, and understanding this emergent architecture is of paramount importance. In this paper, we present the Four-Domain Architecture (FDA), which integrates business process, information, knowledge, and elements pertaining to infrastructure and organization. The FDA approach can help guide the development of both the conceptual and emergent architecture. The FDA helps an enterprise in the definition, design, and creation of a set of tools and methods to support frameworks such as the Zachman framework.

Analyzing Complementarities Using Software Stacks for Software Industry Acquisitions

The existence of product complementarities is especially relevant in network-type industries, such as information technology and communications, where systems of complementary components made by different manufacturers have to be assembled. Relying on the characteristics of software markets and drawing on the economic theory of complementarities, this paper investigates how complementarities create value in mergers and acquisitions between software companies. We introduce and empirically validate the software stack as a structure to measure complementarities. In a sample of mergers and acquisitions, in which either the acquirer or the target is a software firm, we find values of abnormal returns consistent with previous results. However, when we use the concept of stack, we find an inverse curvilinear relationship between abnormal returns and the distance between acquirers and targets in various layers of the stack.

Model management decision environment: a web service prototype for spreadsheet models

In the modern day, digital enterprise data and models are widely distributed. Decision-making in such distributed environments needs secure and easy access to these resources, rapid integration of decision models, and the ability to deploy these in real time. This demands a different approach for model management--one that permits decision-makers to not only share/access but also evaluate/understand models, choose appropriate ones from a collection of models, and orchestrate the execution of the model(s) in real time. In this paper, we describe an architecture that defines a service-oriented, Web service-based approach to model management. We first present a classification of stakeholders from the perspective of model management and identify the layers of modeling knowledge required for managing models. We then define a formal representation for organizing the content knowledge using a graph-based representation. We have used spreadsheet model(s) as a vehicle for explaining and demonstrating our concepts in this paper. Finally, we describe an environment (virtual business environment, VBE) that is based on a Web services architecture that would help store, retrieve, and distribute the layers of modeling knowledge to the various categories of users identified.

Enterprise Architecture: A Social Network Perspective

IS Architecture emerges as a result of a sequence of IS project implementations. The architecture that emerges can be viewed as a network of software components linked by their interdependencies. The network influences, and is influenced by, the intra-organizational interdependencies in which it is embedded. IT management can influence the evolution of the network, and, by extension, the evolution of the organization. However, given time and cost constraints, IT management can most directly influence only a few of the components in the network, the architectural control points. In this research we show how a network perspective using research from social network analysis provides a useful abstraction for understanding architecture. We apply modular operators from design theory to enact changes to architecture. Finally, we show that by following a few simple rules, enterprises can improve the fitness of their architecture as the network emerges and the control points shift over time.

Managing architectural emergence: A conceptual model and simulation

Information systems are increasingly interconnected. They evolve through a sequence of projects that are affected by, and subsequently modify, this interconnectedness. We suggest that decision makers can influence emergent information systems by closely managing only a subset of their applications. We define this set of applications as the architectural control points (ACPs). To help architects manage their architecture, we develop a conceptual model of information system architecture as a network comprising a set of nodes linked by dependencies. We use simulation and network analysis to identify and show the value of ACPs.

Process Coordination Requirements: Implications for the Design of Knowledge Management Systems

Knowledge Management Systems (KMS) are typically built with a departmental focus, making it difficult to share and utilize knowledge across departmental boundaries. Integrating such “knowledge pockets” into a knowledge network requires resolving structural differences and coordinating both knowledge processes and software components. Here we identify a set of coordination requirements for the design of a KMS to support such knowledge networks. We first offer a classification of KM practices to define the types of KM methods and the system requirements for each. We then use coordination theory, specifically, Text-based Process Analysis, to analyze four texts (cases) that capture KM practices representing the different KM methods, to understand and identify the coordination requirements. We also propose the Enterprise Knowledge Architecture (EKA) as a standard for incorporating these requirements. The EKA supports building new KMS and analyzing existing ones by providing a common framework for designing, developing, and maintaining KMS. It thus provides a foundation for integrating knowledge pockets into knowledge networks.

Partnerships between Software Firms: Is There Value from Complementarities?

In network-type industries companies can explore the existence of complementarities in different ways to create value and competitive advantage. Gao and Iyer (2006) introduce a new methodology, based on the software stack, and show that there is value in mergers and acquisitions between companies that produce complementary components of network systems. We apply the same methodology to a sample of Alliances and find that even though there is value in Alliances between companies that produce in adjacent layers of the stack, abnormal returns are higher when both participants produce on the same layer of the stack.

Monitoring Platform Emergence: Guidelines from Software Networks

In this paper we explore how platforms emerge and evolve due to independent actions by companies providing them or launching products on them. We use the software industry as the setting for our study. We analyze the pattern of evolution for Windows, Unix, and Linux over 14 years. Based on this, we derive some lessons for companies aspiring to compete in settings where platforms and complementors play a major role. We support our analysis using visualizations.

The Future of Frontline Research: Invited Commentaries

This article contains a set of six invited commentaries written by leading scholars, expressing varied perspectives on the future of frontline research and on the frontline domain itself. The article accompanies the Journal of Service Research special issue on organizational frontlines. In their commentaries, the authors share insightful views on areas of personal interest ranging from employee emotion and customer relationship building to the effect of technology and its implementation at the organizational frontline. Included within each commentary are managerial insights and suggestions for needed research in the highlighted area.

Interconnect to win: the joint effects of business strategy and network positions on the performance of software firms

We develop and test a model of how a software firms business strategy (product scope and market scope) interacts with the firms network position (alliance degree and structural holes) to impact performance. We test the joint-effects hypotheses on a sample 359 packaged software firms that have entered into 5,489 alliances involving 2,849 distinct firms during the time period, 1990–2002. While prior studies have demonstrated the importance of network positions as a determinant of firm strategy and performance, this chapter begins to examine the performance effects of how a firms business strategy and network positions interact. We find support for three of the four hypotheses lending empirical support for our theoretical model. We develop implications for network-based perspectives of strategy and outline areas for further research.