Christine Legner

Understanding the Economic Potential of Service-Oriented Architecture

Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is one of the most discussed topics in the information systems (IS) discipline. While most computer scientists agree that the service-oriented paradigm has clear benefits in terms of technical quality attributes, it has been difficult to justify SOA economically. The few studies that have investigated the strategic and economic aspects of SOA are mostly exploratory and lack a more comprehensive framework for understanding the sources of its economic potential. Based on IS and SOA literature, our work goes further in suggesting the SOA economic potential model, which describes the causal relationships between the SOAs style characteristics and value it can provide on the business side. Using this model, we investigate 164 SOA cases published between 2003 and 2008 to explore the economic rationale for adopting SOA. Our findings suggest that SOAs business benefits are currently mainly driven by operational and information technology infrastructural improvements. However, enterprises also realize strategic benefits from SOA; for example, by electronically integrating with their business partners by means of SOA. We use the results of our study to derive propositions and suggest a research model for future studies on SOAs economic potential.

Preface to the Focus Theme Section: 'Business Interoperability' Business Interoperability Research: Present Achievements and Upcoming Challenges

Preface to the Focus Theme Section: ‘Business Interoperability’ Business Interoperability Research: Present Achievements and Upcoming Challenges Christine Legner & Baptiste Lebreton To cite this article: Christine Legner & Baptiste Lebreton (2007) Preface to the Focus Theme Section: ‘Business Interoperability’ Business Interoperability Research: Present Achievements and Upcoming Challenges, Electronic Markets, 17:3, 176-186 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10196780701503054

B2B integration in global supply chains: An identification of technical integration scenarios

The competitiveness of businesses is increasingly dependent on their electronic networks with customers, suppliers, and partners. While the strategic and operational impact of external integration and IOS adoption has been extensively studied, much less attention has been paid to the organizational and technical design of electronic relationships. The objective of our longitudinal research project is the development of a framework for understanding and explaining B2B integration. Drawing on existing literature and empirical cases we present a reference model (a classification scheme for B2B Integration). The reference model comprises technical, organizational, and institutional levels to reflect the multiple facets of B2B integration. In this paper we investigate the current state of electronic collaboration in global supply chains focussing on the technical view. Using an in-depth case analysis we identify five integration scenarios. In the subsequent confirmatory phase of the research we analyse 112 real-world company cases to validate these five integration scenarios. Our research advances and deepens existing studies by developing a B2B reference model, which reflects the current state of practice and is independent of specific implementation technologies. In the next stage of the research the emerging reference model will be extended to create an assessment model for analysing the maturity level of a given company in a specific supply chain.

Overcoming implementation challenges in enterprise architecture management: a design theory for architecture-driven IT Management (ADRIMA)

Enterprise architecture management (EAM) is acknowledged as a discipline to drive organizational change, to improve IT landscapes’ transparency, and to align business and IT. Despite its increasing popularity in practice, many EAM initiatives are confronted with substantial challenges, as demonstrated by the low usage level of enterprise architecture (EA) documentation and enterprise architects’ lack of authority, and often fail. This motivates our research, which aims at developing a design theory that may guide organizations to successfully implement EAM. Based on three field studies, we first analyze the issues that arise when implementing EAM in practice. We find that EAM often suffers from being regarded as a separate and parallel initiative, although it needs to be embedded in established management processes and organization. We then suggest a design theory for architecture-driven IT management (ADRIMA) that synthesizes prescriptive knowledge related to embedding EAM practices, artifacts, and roles in the existing IT management processes and organization. By consolidating both IT management and EAM perspectives, our research goes beyond existing EA literature and EA frameworks which describe EAM as a stand-alone management concept focusing on EA models and the EA life cycle.

Is There a Market for Web Services

Web services are expected to foster the creation of networks of specialists which expose their digital services over the internet for the dynamic discovery of services by other organizations. Given this vision, the question arises whether and how Web services will be traded in the future. Based on a longitudinal study of commercial Web services directories and registries, this paper analyzes the market structure, the role of intermediaries and the Web services offering. The study suggests that the Web services market faces a rather slow evolution with a significant shakeout in 2006. More recently, an increasing professionalization can be observed given that commercial Web services specialists emerge and Web services directories are relaunched. The paper draws conclusions on the future market development and discusses analogies to the newer mashup-oriented service directories.

Leveraging Web Services for Implementing Vertical Industry Standards: A Model for Service-Based Interoperability

With deeper levels of external process integration and a growing number of electronic business relationships, enterprises are striving to become more interoperable with their business partners. While two-way integration linkages have mostly been realized as point-to-point connections with a handful of business partners, new integration technologies such as Web services and XML give enterprises the opportunity to pursue more cost-efficient and scalable ways of external business process integration. This research develops a model for service-based B2B interoperability that leverages Web service technologies for implementing industry standards. The authors instantiate the conceptual model in a B2B scenario in the automotive industry, where a consortium of automotive manufacturers and suppliers are currently redesigning their interorganizational engineering change management processes. From the evaluation, the authors suggest that the specification of standards related to pragmatics, semantics and syntax has to be complemented by additional design rules which define how industry standards are mapped to a public Web service design. The paper concludes with a revised model for service-based interoperability and discusses implications for B2B standardization.

Collaborative order management: toward standard solutions for interorganisational order management

Order management ranks among the key operational processes. Inefficiencies within this process have direct impacts on customer service, order cycle times as well as order execution costs. The massive investments in implementing systems for enterprise resource planning (ERP) have already led to significant improvements in managing orders across organisational units within enterprises. However, ERP systems have not been designed for exchanging order information with business partners. Established interorganisational solutions such as electronic data interchange (EDI) are not widespread and existing solutions are largely proprietary. This article discusses the emerging standard solutions and services for interorganisational or collaborative order management (COM). Starting from a generic definition of the COM process, an explorative study aims to provide an overview on the status, developments and perspectives of COM. Order management solutions and electronic services are discussed as the two main emerging areas in COM and various providers are analysed using content analysis and case research. The current picture shows fragmented solutions and a substantial need for integration. Possible scenarios and open research questions are provided in the concluding section of this paper.

Digitalization: Opportunity and Challenge for the Business and Information Systems Engineering Community

The convergence of the so-called SMAC technologies – social, mobile, analytics, and cloud computing – has led to an unprecedented wave of digitalization that is currently fueling innovation in business and society. As digitalization is embracing all aspects of our private and professional lives, it is becoming a priority for managers and policymakers, and has made it into the headlines of newspapers, magazines, and practitioner conferences. This wave of digitalization is creating opportunities for the BISE community to engage in innovative research activities and to increase the discipline’s visibility. However, since BISE researchers have investigated the increasing exploitation and integration of digital technologies over several decades, they also naturally react with ambivalence when others claim that going digital is a new phenomenon.

Designing business models for cloud platforms

Platform as a service (PaaS) has become a strategic option for software vendors who expect to benefit from value co‐creation with partners by developing complementary components and applications. In reality, however, established and new software vendors are battling to redefine their offering to embrace PaaS. They face the challenges of transforming, configuring and calibrating their PaaS business models to align them with existing business models, customer expectations and competitive pressures. This motivates our research question: How can software providers design viable business models for PaaS? Our study develops a design theory for PaaS business models. This theory is grounded on a 12‐month action design research study at one of the largest global software companies (here called Alpha) with mixed PaaS experiences in the past. Our primary research contribution is a set of design principles that guide software providers to define a viable PaaS business model in order to create a flourishing software ecosystem for their cloud platform. By synthesizing prescriptive knowledge related to business model design for emerging cloud platforms, our study advances PaaS research towards the existing body of research on software platforms and business models.

SOA adoption in business networks: do service-oriented architectures really advance inter-organizational integration?

The emergence of the Internet as a global communication infrastructure has dramatically reduced interaction costs within and across organizations, with significant impact on inter-organizational relationships, vertical industry structures, and markets. More recently, service-oriented architectures (SOA) and Web services have introduced the next paradigm shift and foster the idea of dynamic business networks with quick connect and disconnect relationships. However, little research has systematically analyzed how companies leverage SOA to improve their inter-organizational relationships and reshape their business networks. In addition, the mature research stream on inter-organizational information systems (IOS) has not yet sufficiently considered SOA. In order to close this gap, our research seeks to improve the fundamental understanding of how SOA is applied in business networks and how it differs from prior forms of IOS. Using an exploratory research approach, we investigate 33 SOA cases to identify focus areas and patterns of SOA adoption in business networks. Our case analysis builds on a multi-dimensional classification scheme which we derived from prior literature. While our empirical findings do not confirm all promising propositions related to SOA, they underline the specific contribution of SOA compared to prior forms of IOS. We conclude by suggesting five clusters of SOA adoption in the inter-organizational domain, each of those introducing new aspects in the coordination of distributed business networks.