Information and Knowledge Management using ArcGIS ModelBuilder

Thanos Magoulas, Aida Hadzic, Ted Saarikko and Kalevi Pessi
It also bears mentioning that the Scandinavian school of thought carries with it explicit consideration
of alignment between the hard & soft aspects (please see figure 2) of design in general and EA in
particular. Yet practical examples of architectures that align hard and soft aspects can also be found
within international companies such as Xerox (Howard 1992).
Figure 2: The hard & soft aspects of the architecture
5. Conclusions
The primary aim of this inquiry has been: How are the various forms and aspects of architectural
alignment treated by the investigated approaches to Enterprise Architecture? This issue has been
investigated with respect to socio-cultural, socio-structural, functional, infological and contextual
alignment. Our study has provided us with the following conclusions:
Firstly, our investigation clearly demonstrates that approaches to Enterprise Architecture provide
guidance for socio-structural and functional alignment, but less so for infological or socio-cultural
alignment. A possible explanation may be that investigated approaches follow a paradigm that
demands the independence of information and information systems from, cognitive, organizational
and technological aspects, (as explained by Brancheau, J.C and Wetherbe, J.C, (1986)). Another
interpretation of the same issue is that investigated approaches are derived from a tradition of
engineering design rather than architectural design. This would account for the focus on requirements
and constraints found in the “hard” aspects of the enterprise, rather than the “softer” aspects such as
goals and decision making that characterizes architectural design.
Secondly, the area of contextual alignment is described by all investigated approaches as being free
from barriers in general and functional barriers in particular. Some – but not all – forms of contextual
alignment are established through contractual agreements. This is presumably in response to the
heterogeneity inherent to most environments. Some approaches explicitly mention the requisite to
respect regulations and laws.
Finally, none of the investigated approaches discuss the mutual interdependence that exists between
the various forms of alignment. However, the architectural patterns of the enterprise are the result of
organizational forces rather than rationality. This follows previous research by Mintzberg (1989).
References
Ackoff, R. L. (1967) Management Misinformation Systems. Management Science,Vol. 4, No. 4.
Argyris, C. (1980) Some Inner Contradictions in Management Information Systems. I H. Lucas, F. Land, T.
Lincoln och K. Supper, red. The Information Systems Environment, North-Holland.
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