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REPORT SERIES/DSVModel-driven Alignment:Linking Business
Strategy with Information Systems
DSV Report Series No. 14-008
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Model-driven AlignmentLinking Business Strategy with Information
Systems
Constantinos Giannoulis
mailto:[email protected]
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c©Constantinos Giannoulis, Kista, Stockholm 2014
ISBN 1101-8526ISBN 978-91-7447-891-4
Printed in Sweden by US-AB, May 2014
Distributor: Department of Computer & Systems Sciences ,
Stockholm University
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dedicated to my parents, Georgios and Mariato my sister,
Stella
to my brother, Dimitriosαφιερωμένο στους γονείς μου, Γιώργο και
Μαρία
στην αδερφή μου, Στέλλαστον αδερφό μου, Δημήτρη
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Abstract
Information technology (IT) is more pervasive than ever before,
constitutinga significant factor for performance and survival in
the business arena. It isessential that IT within organizations
understands what the Business needs inorder to provide the
necessary support and bring value, which is also true whenIT is
also the main value creator. Therefore, alignment between the
Businessand IT within organizations is an issue of great concern
and it is still open forsolvency both for business and IT
executives and practitioners.
This work is scoped to the alignment linkage between business
strategy andinformation systems (IS), where business strategy
typically constitutes the pri-mary exponent of the Business and IS
typically encapsulates the elements of ITsustaining an
organization. Current approaches are either focused on
detailedaspects of IS and treat business strategy abstractly or use
distinct business strat-egy formulations (e.g. Value Chain) but
deal with IS only partially. This isproblematic because the
abstract use of business strategy hinders traceabilityof strategic
intentions and initiatives towards features/aspects of IS, which
areaimed to actualize and support such intentions. Because
approaches using dis-tinct business strategy formulations are not
relevant to all organizations andare limited only to the IS aspects
addressed.
Introducing a model-driven approach for the alignment linkage is
aimedat addressing the outlined shortcomings. Following a design
science researchparadigm, the main artifact developed is the
Unified Business Strategy Meta-Model (UBSMM), which is based on
conceptualizing established businessstrategy formulations (e.g.
Value Chain) and integrating them. UBSMM sup-ports mappings to IS
models used in organizations, such as IS requirements,enterprise
models and enterprise architecture, and provides unambiguous
uti-lization of business strategy for the alignment linkage.
Contributions of this thesis are grounded both on the process of
buildingUBSMM and mapping to IS models, as well as the artifact
itself. Concep-tualizing and integrating business strategy
formulations provides a less am-biguous and unified view of
strategic concepts. This limits variations in inter-pretation and
reinforces mappings to IS models, which are defined based
oninter-schema properties across models. Therefore, UBSMM can link
businessstrategy to IS models enhancing their communication in a
traceable manner,ergo, support alignment.
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Περίληψη
Η Τεχνολογία Πληροφοριών κι Επικοινωνίας (ΤΠΕ) είναι πιο
διαδεδομένηαπό ποτέ άλλοτε, αποτελώντας σημαντικό παράγοντα
παραγωγικότητας καιεπιχειρηματικής επιβίωσης. Είναι σημαντικό μέσα
σε οργανισμούς ο τομέαςΤΠΕ να κατανοεί τι χρειάζεται η επιχείρηση
προκειμένου να παράσχει τηναπαραίτητη υποστήριξη και να προσδώσει
αξία. Αυτό ισχύει επίσης ότανη ΤΠΕ είναι ο κύριος δημιουργός αξίας
της ίδιας της επιχείρησης. Ωςεκ τούτου, η ευθυγράμμιση και ο
συγχρονισμός μεταξύ του επιχειρησι-ακού τομέα και του τομέα ΤΠΕ στο
εσωτερικό ενός οργανισμού είναι έναζήτημα μεγάλης ανησυχίας και
εξακολουθεί να είναι ανοικτό για στελέχηεπιχειρήσεων, στελέχη
πληροφορικής καθώς και επαγγελματίες στον τομέατεχνολογίας
πληροφοριών.
Το πεδἰο έρευνας αυτής της διατριβής ορίζεται στο συντονισμό
τηςεπιχειρηματικής στρατηγικής και των πληροφοριακών συστημάτων,
καθώςαφενός η επιχειρηματική στρατηγική είθισται να αποτελεί τον
κύριο εκ-φραστή του σκοπού μιας επιχείρησης και του τρόπου
επίτευξης του, ενώαφετέρου τα πληροφοριακά συστήματα ενσωματώνουν
τα στοιχεία της ΤΠΕπου απαρτίζουν και υποστηρίζουν τις λειτουργίες
ενός οργανισμού. Οι υπ-άρχουσες προσεγγίσεις είτε επικεντρώνονται
σε συγκεκριμένες πτυχές τωνπληροφοριακών συστημάτων και
πραγματεύονται έννοιες επιχειρηματικήςστρατηγικής αφηρημένα ή
χρησιμοποιούν συγκεκριμένους σχηματισμούςεπιχειρηματικής
στρατηγικής (π.χ. Αλυσίδα Αξίας) αλλά πραγματεύονταιτα πληροφοριακά
συστήματα μερικώς ή επιδερμικά. Αυτή η αντιμετώπισηόμως είναι
προβληματική γιατί η αφηρημένη χρήση εννοιών
επιχειρηματικήςστρατηγικής εμποδίζει την ανίχνευση στρατηγικών
προθέσεων και πρω-τοβουλιών σε συγκεκριμένες πτυχές και
χαρακτηριστικά των πληροφορι-ακών συστημάτων, τα οποία έχουν ως
στόχο να πραγματώσουν και ναυποστηρίξούν τέτοιες προθέσεις. Οι
υπάρχουσες προσεγγίσεις που χρησι-μοποιούν συγκεκριμένους
σχηματισμούς επιχειρηματικής στρατηγικής δενμπορούν να συσχετιστούν
με κάθε είδους οργανισμό και περιορίζονται στιςπτυχές των
πληροφοριακών συστημάτων των συγκεκριμένων οργανισμώνπου έχουν
σχεδιαστεί να απευθύνουν.
Η εισαγωγή της εν λόγω, βασισμένης στην έννοια των μοντέλων,
προσέγ-γισης για τη σύνδεση συντονισμού της επιχειρηματικής
στρατηγικής και
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πληροφοριακών συστημάτων αποσκοπεί στην αντιμετώπιση των
ελλείψεωνπου προαναφέρθηκαν. Ακολουθώντας το ερευνητικό παράδειγμα
ΕπιστήμηςΣχεδιασμού, το κύριο προϊόν που αναπτύχθηκε είναι ένα
Ενοποιημένο Μετα-Μοντέλο Επιχειρηματικής Στρατη-γικής (ΕΜΜΕΣ) που
βασίζεται στη θεώ-ρηση καθιερωμένων σχηματισμών επιχει-ρηματικής
στρατηγικής (π.χ. Αλυ-σίδα Αξίας) και την ενοποίηση τους. Το ΕΜΜΕΣ
υποστηρίζει αντισ-τοιχίσεις με μοντέλα πληροφοριακών συστημάτων που
χρησιμοποιούνταισε οργανισμούς, όπως είναι μοντέλα προαπαιτούμενων,
επιχειρησιακά μον-τέλα και μοντέλα επιχειρησιακής αρχιτεκτονικής,
και παρέχει μη αφηρημένηχρησιμοποίηση εννοιών επιχειρηματικής
στρατηγικής για τη σύνδεση συν-τονισμού της επιχειρηματικής
στρατηγικής και των πληροφοριακών συστη-μάτων.Η συνεισφορά της
παρούσας διατριβής είναι βασισμένη στη διαδικασία
της δημιουργίας του ΕΜΜΕΣ και την αντιστοίχιση του με μοντέλα
πληρο-φοριακών συστημάτων, καθώς και στο ίδιο το μετα-μοντέλο. Η
θεώρησηκαι η ενσωμάτωση σχηματισμών επιχειρηματικής στρατηγικής
παρέχουν μιαλιγότερο αμφίσημη και ενοποιημένη εικόνα στρατηγικών
εννοιών. Αυτό πε-ριορίζει τις όποιες παρερμηνείες στη χρήση
στρατηγικών εννοιών κι ενισχύειαντιστοιχίσεις προς τρίτα μοντέλα
πληροφοριακών συστημάτων, τα οποίαορίζονται με βάση τις
διασχηματικές ιδιότητες μεταξύ των μοντέλων. Ωςεκ τούτου, το ΕΜΜΕΣ
είναι σε θέση να συνδέσει την επιχειρηματικήστρατηγική με μοντέλα
πληροφοριακών συστημάτων ενισχύοντας την επικοιν-ωνία τους με
επαληθεύσιμο τρόπο με συνέπεια να υποστηρίζει την ευθυ-γράμμιση
τους.
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Sammanfattning
Informationsteknik (IT) är mer genomgripande än någonsin
tidigare och utgören viktig faktor för prestanda och överlevnad i
affärsvärlden. För att kunna gedet stöd som behövs för att skapa
värde är det viktigt att IT inom organisationerförstår vad
affärsverksamheten kräver, vilket också är fallet när IT är den
hu-vudsakliga värdeskaparen. Därför är anpassningen mellan
affärsverksamhetenoch IT inom organisationer en viktig och alltjämt
öppen fråga för både affärs-och IT-chefer samt för utövare
operativt ansvarig.
Det här arbetets omfattning avgränsas till
integrationskopplingen (Align-ment Linkage) mellan affärsstrategi
och informationssystem (IS), där affärs-strategin vanligtvis utgör
den främsta exponenten av affärsverksamheten ochIS normalt omfattar
de delar av IT som upprätthåller organisationen. Nuvaran-de metoder
är antingen inriktade på detaljerade aspekter av IS och
behandlaraffärsstrategin enbart på ett abstrakt sätt, eller på att
använda specifika affärs-strategiformuleringar (t.ex. Värdekedjan),
men behandlar då IS enbart delvis.Detta är problematiskt eftersom
den abstrakta användningen av affärsstrateginhindrar spårbarheten
av strategiska avsikter och initiativ för särdrag/aspekterav IS,
vilka är ämnade att aktualisera och stödja sådana intentioner.
Detta be-ror på att tillvägagångssätt med olika
affärsstrategiformuleringar inte är rele-vanta för alla
organisationer och är begränsade enbart till de IS-aspekter
sombehandlas.
Införandet av en modelldriven strategi för
integrationskopplingen syftar tillatt åtgärda de beskrivna
bristerna. Den huvudsakliga artefakten, som har ut-vecklats enligt
den designvetenskapliga forskningsparadigmen, är Unified Bu-siness
Strategy Meta-Model (UBSMM), som bygger på en konceptualiseringoch
integrering av etablerade affärsstrategiformuleringar (t.ex.
Värdekedjan).UBSMM stödjer mappningar till IS-modeller som används
inom organisatio-ner, såsom IS-krav, företagsmodeller och
företagsarkitekturer, samt möjliggörett otvetydigt utnyttjande av
affärsstrategier för integrationskopplingen.
Bidrag från denna avhandling är baserade både på
utvecklingsarbetet medUBSMM och mappningen till IS-modeller, samt
på själva artefakten. Koncep-tualisering och integrering av
affärsstrategiformuleringar erbjuder en mindretvetydig och enhetlig
bild av strategiska koncept. Detta begränsar tolknings-variationer
och förstärker mappningar till IS-modeller, vilka definieras
utifråninter-schemaegenskaper mellan modellerna. UBSMM kan därför
knyta affärs-
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strategin till IS-modeller och därmed förbättra deras
kommunikation på ettspårbart sätt, följaktligen, stödja
integrationskopplingen.
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List of Publications
The following published articles are included in this thesis and
are referred toin the text by their Roman numerals (e.g. in-text
references to ”Article 1” areplaced as ”Article I”).
I: Giannoulis, C., Petit, M., Zdravkovic, J. (2010)Towards a
Unified Business Strategy Language: A Meta-model ofStrategy Maps.
In: 3rd Working Conference on the Practice of Enter-prise Modeling
(PoEM 2010), Springer, LNBIP, 68, p.205-216.
II: Giannoulis, C., Petit, M., Zdravkovic, J. (2011)Modeling
Business Strategy: A Meta-model of Strategy Maps andBalanced
Scorecards. In: 5th IEEE International Conference on Re-search
Challenges in Information Science (RCIS 2011), IEEE, p.1-6.
III: Giannoulis, C., Petit, M., Zdravkovic, J. (2011)Modeling
Competition-Driven Business Strategy for Business IT Align-ment.
In: 6th International workshop on Business/IT Alignment and
In-teroperability (BUSITAL 2011), part of Advanced Information
SystemsEngineering Workshops (CAiSE 2011), Springer, LNBIP, 83,
p.16-28.
IV: Giannoulis, C., Zdravkovic, J., Petit, M. (2012)Model-Driven
Strategic Awareness: From a Unified Business Strat-egy Meta-Model
(UBSMM) to Enterprise Architecture. In: 17thInternational
conference on Exploring Modelling Methods for SystemsAnalysis and
Design (EMMSAD 2012), Springer, LNBIP, 113, p.255-269.
V: Giannoulis, C., Zdravkovic, J. (2012)Linking Strategic
Innovation to Requirements: a look into Blue OceanStrategy. In: 5th
Working Conference on the Practice of EnterpriseModeling (PoEM
2012), CEUR, 933, p.118-128.
VI: Giannoulis, C., Zdravkovic, J. (2011)Modeling Strategy Maps
and Balanced Scorecards using iStar. In:5th International i*
workshop (iStar 2011), CEUR, 766, p.90-95.
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VII: Giannoulis, C., Svee, E., Zdravkovic, J. (2013)Capturing
Consumer Preference in System Requirements ThroughBusiness
Strategy. In: International Journal of Information SystemModeling
and Design (IJISMD), IGI, 4, 4, p.1-26.
VIII: Giannoulis, C., Zikra, I., Bergholtz, M., Zdravkovic, J.,
Stirna, J., Johan-nesson, P. (2013)A Comparative Analysis of
Enterprise Modeling Approaches for Mod-eling Business Strategy. In:
6th Working Conference on the Practice ofEnterprise Modeling (PoEM
2013), CEUR, 1023, p.193-204.
IX: Giannoulis, C., Zdravkovic, J., Petit, M.
(2013)Model-Centric Strategy-IT Alignment: An Empirical Study in
Progress.In: 8th International workshop on Business/IT Alignment
and Interop-erability (BUSITAL 2013), part of Advanced Information
Systems Engi-neering Workshops (CAiSE 2013), Springer, LNBIP, 148,
p.146-155.
X: Giannoulis, C., Zdravkovic, J. (2014)Model-centric
Strategy2IS Linkage: An Empirical Study. In: 16thIEEE Conference on
Business Informatics (CBI 2014), Submitted.
XI: Giannoulis, C., Zdravkovic, J. (2014)A Design Science
Perspective on Business Strategy Modeling. In:19th International
conference on Exploring Modelling Methods for Sys-tems Analysis and
Design (EMMSAD 2014), Springer, LNBIP, 175, Ac-cepted, to
appear.
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Publications not included
This section includes a list of the author’s publications that
have not been partof this thesis. They are grouped into
publications of research work, which isrelated to the topic of this
thesis and publications of project work the author hasundertaken on
Goal-driven Verification, Validation and Accreditation (VV&A)to
support the acceptance of model, simulations and data.
Publications related to the research work of this thesis:
1. Zdravkovic, J., Svee., E., Giannoulis, C. (2013)Capturing
Consumer Preferences as Requirements for Software ProductLines. In:
Requirements Engineering (RE) Journal, Springer London,p.1-20
2. Zdravkovic, J., Giannoulis, C., Svee., E. (2013)Using i* to
Capture Consumer Preferences as Requirements for Soft-ware Product
Lines. In: 6th International i* workshop (iStar 2013),CEUR, 978:
p.97-102
3. Svee., E., Giannoulis, C., Zdravkovic, J. (2012)Towards
Consumer Preference-Aware Requirements. In: 7th Interna-tional
workshop on Business/IT Alignment and Interoperability (BUSI-TAL
2012), part of Advanced Information Systems Engineering Work-shops
(CAiSE 2012), Springer, LNBIP, 112: p.531-542
4. Svee., E., Zdravkovic, J., Giannoulis, C. (2012)Consumer
Value-aware Enterprise Architecture. In: 3rd
Internationalconference on Software Business (ICSOB 2012),
Springer, LNBIP, 114:p.55-69
5. Svee., E., Giannoulis, C., Zdravkovic, J. (2011)Modeling
Business Strategy: A Consumer Value Perspective. In: 4thWorking
Conference on the Practice of Enterprise Modeling (PoEM2011),
Springer, LNBIP, 92: p.67-81
6. Shahzad, K. Giannoulis, C. (2011)Towards a Goal-Driven
Approach for Business Process ImprovementUsing Process-Oriented
Data Warehouse. In: 14th International con-ference on Business
Information Systems (BIS 2011), Springer, LNBIP,87: p.111-122
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7. Giannoulis, C., Zdravkovic, J. (2010)Exploring Risk-Awareness
in i* models. In: 4th International i* work-shop (iStar 2010),
CEUR, 586: p.103-107.
Publications related to project work of the author on
Goal-driven Verification,Validation and Accreditation (VV&A)
inlcude:
1. Jonsson, F., Giannoulis, C., Roza, M., Adelantado, M.,
Igarza, J.L.(2014)GM-VV - An International Recommended Practice for
Verification andValidation of Models, Simulations and Data. In the
Modeling & Simu-lation Journal by the US Department of Defense
(DoD) Modeling andSimulation Coordination Office (MSCO),
Submitted
2. Giannoulis, C. (Drafting Group Assistant Editor) (2013)Guide
for Generic Methodology for Verification and Validation (GM-VV) to
Support Acceptance of Models, Simulations, and Data. GM-VVVolume 3:
Reference Manual. Published reference product (SISO-REF-039-2013)
by the Simulation Interoperability Standards Organization(SISO)
3. Giannoulis, C. (Drafting Group Assistant Editor) (2013)Guide
for Generic Methodology for Verification and Validation (GM-VV) to
Support Acceptance of Models, Simulations, and Data. GM-VV Volume
2: Implementation Guide. Balloted and published guidanceproduct
(SISO-GUIDE-001.2-2013) by the Simulation InteroperabilityStandards
Organization (SISO)
4. Giannoulis, C., Snygg, J., Strömback, P., Hellmans, R.,
Heden, H. (2013)Exercising GM-VV: Verification and Validation of a
Missile Model. In:Fall Simulation Interoperability Workshop (2013
Fall SIW), SISO weblibrary
5. Giannoulis, C. (Drafting Group Assistant Editor) (2012)Guide
for Generic Methodology for Verification and Validation (GM-VV) to
Support Acceptance of Models, Simulations, and Data. GM-VVVolume 1:
Introduction and Overview. Balloted and published guidanceproduct
(SISO-GUIDE-001.1-2012) by the Simulation InteroperabilityStandards
Organization (SISO)
6. Giannoulis, C., Kamrani, F., Tegner, J. (2012)Förstudie
införande av GM-VV i Försvarsmakten och stödmyndigheter.
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Metod och teknikutveckling VV&A 2011. Technical Report for
the Infor-mation Systems Department of the Swedish Defence Research
Agency(FOI), FOI-R-3431-SE.
7. Roza, M., Voogd, J., Giannoulis, C. (2011)The GM-VV: Its
Relationship to the VV&A Overlay for the FEDEP. In:Fall
Simulation Interoperability Workshop (2011 Fall SIW), SISO
weblibrary
8. Masys, A., Roza, M., Giannoulis, C., Jaquart, R.
(2008)Verification, Validation and Accreditation (VV&A): The
GM-VV Contri-bution and Roadmap. In: NATO RTO Modelling and
Simulation GroupConference, NATO MSG-60
9. Roza, M., Voogd, J., Giannoulis, C. (2008)Towards a Generic
Data Information Model for VV&A. In: Spring Sim-ulation
Interoperability Workshop (2008 Spring SIW), SISO web library
10. Giannoulis, C., Kabilan, V., Roza, M. (2008)Verification,
Validation and Accreditation of legacy simulations usingBusiness
Process Modeling Notation. In: Spring Simulation Interoper-ability
Workshop (2008 Spring SIW), SISO web library
11. Giannoulis, C., Kabilan, V., Nillson, S.Å., Svan, P. (2007)A
Method for VVA Tailoring: The REVVA Generic Process Tailoring.In:
Fall Simulation Interoperability Workshop (2007 Fall SIW), SISOweb
library
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Acknowledgements
First and foremost I must express my gratitude and deep
appreciation to my su-pervisor, Jelena Zdravkovic, for guidance,
support, and motivation over theseyears. I am also grateful to my
co-supervisor Paul Johannesson whose wiseadvice and support have
been key to my progress.
I am thankful to all my co-authors for the discussions, the
debates, thecritiques, and writing efforts: Thank you Michaël Petit
at the University ofNamur, Eric-Oluf Svee, Iyad Zikra, Maria
Bergholtz, Janis Stirna, and Khur-ram Shahzad at the Department of
Computer and Systems Sciences (DSV).
I am also grateful to the many colleagues, students, and
teachers at DSV forthe long talks, the support, the experiences
exchanged, and the advice offered.I am particularly grateful to
Sumithra Velupillai for the support offered to eachother during our
parallel studies, and for together reviving the moribund PhDStudent
Board at DSV, which is active today and has a promising future.
I must acknowledge my master’s students who have worked hard to
de-velop the tool implementations included in this thesis: Thank
you David Lilje-gren, Julien Silverio, and Roozbeh Maadani.
My thanks must also go to Fredrik Jonsson and Håkan Lagerström
at theSwedish Defense Materiel Administration for their trust, and
for our long andfruitful collaboration. I will be eternally
thankful to Sten-Åke Nilsson† whooffered me the opportunity to
embark upon this journey at the Swedish DefenseResearch Agency.
My thanks to Dimitris Karagiannis and his entire research group
at theUniversity of Vienna for the opportunity to work with them,
as well as fortheir hospitality, during my research visit
there.
I am thankful to all the people in my life, especially my Eva
and my friendsGeorgios, Giorgos, Giannis, Mohammed, Nicolas,
Stefano, and Themistocleswhose friendship, patience, knowledge,
care, and wisdom have supported, en-lightened, and entertained me
over the years. They have consistently helpedme maintain
perspective on what is important in life and have shown me howto
deal with reality.
Finally, I want to thank my parents, my sister, and my brother
whose un-conditional support and care has always been an important
constant in my life.
Thank you all from the bottom of my heart!
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List of Abbreviations
BMO Business Model OntologyBOS Blue Ocean StrategyBOS-MM Blue
Ocean Strategy Meta-modelBSC Balanced ScorecardsDSM Design Science
MethodDSR Design Science ResearchEA Enterprise ArchitectureEKD
Enterprise Knowledge DevelopmentEM Enterprise ModelingGORE
Goal-oriented Requirements EngineeringIS Information SystemsIT
Information TechnologyMDD Model-driven DevelopmentRE Requirements
EngineeringSAM Strategic Alignment ModelSMBSC Strategy Maps &
Balanced ScorecardsSMBSC-MM Strategy Maps & Balanced Scorecards
meta-modelSWOT Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, ThreatsUBSMM
Unified Business Strategy Meta-modelUML Unified Modeling LanguageVC
Value ConfigurationVC-MM Value Configuration Meta-model
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Contents
Abstract vii
Περίληψη ix
Sammanfattning xi
List of Publications xiii
Acknowledgements xix
List of Abbreviations xxi
List of Figures xxvii
List of Tables xxix
1 Introduction 11.1 Research Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . 21.2 Research Question . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . 41.3 Research Goals . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . 51.4 Key Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . 61.5 Disposition . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2 Extended Background 92.1 Business Strategy . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92.2 Business Strategy Formulations . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.2.1 The Value Chain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
122.2.2 The Value Shop and The Value Network . . . . . . . .
142.2.3 Strategy Maps and Balanced Scorecards . . . . . . . .
142.2.4 Blue Ocean Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
16
2.3 Alignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . 172.4 IS Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . 18
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3 Research Methodology 213.1 Research Paradigm . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
3.1.1 Philosophical Assumptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
223.1.2 A Pluralistic Research Paradigm . . . . . . . . . . . .
24
3.2 Research Process using the Design Science Method . . . . . .
263.3 Methodological Choices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. 27
3.3.1 Explicate Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
273.3.2 Outline Artifact and Define Requirements . . . . . . .
283.3.3 Design and Develop Artifact . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
283.3.4 Demonstrate Artifact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
283.3.5 Evaluate Artifact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
29
4 Problem Explicationand Artifact Requirements 314.1 Explicate
the Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314.2
Artifact Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
34
4.2.1 Artifact Outline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
354.2.2 Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
36
5 Artifact Designand Development 395.1 Artifact Design . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395.2 Development Process .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405.3 UBSMM: Classes
& Constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415.4 UBSMM
Specializations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
5.4.1 UBSMM.SMBSC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 525.4.2
UBSMM.VC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 575.4.3
UBSMM.BOS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
6 Artifact Demonstration & Evaluation 676.1 Demonstration .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 676.2 Evaluation
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 686.3
Design Science Research — General Criteria . . . . . . . . . 70
7 Discussion 737.1 Construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . 737.2 Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 747.3 Usability . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 777.4 Effects . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
-
8 Concluding Remarks 798.1 Concluding Summary . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . 798.2 Methodological Rigor &
Contribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
8.2.1 Rigor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
818.2.2 Contribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
82
8.3 Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . 848.4 Directions for Future Research . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . 85
Bibliography 87
Appendix 97A UBSMM Implementation in ADOxx . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . 97B UBSMM Mobile Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. 109
Articles 115Article I. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . 117Article II. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131Article III. . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139Article IV. . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
155Article V. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . 173Article VI. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . 187Article VII. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195Article VIII. . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223Article IX. . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
237Article X. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . 249Article XI. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . 259
-
List of Figures
1.1 Linkage for alignment between strategy and IS. . . . . . . .
. 3
2.1 Commonly used SWOT analysis adapted from [6]. . . . . . .
102.2 The Value Configuration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . 132.3 The Strategy Map template (taken from [78]). . . . . . .
. . . 152.4 The Strategy Canvas capturing a Blue Ocean Strategy
(taken
from [84]). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . 162.5 The Strategic Alignment Model (SAM) taken from [61]. . .
. 17
3.1 The Design Science Method (taken from [72]). . . . . . . . .
27
4.1 Screenshots from the online questionnaire where the
upperpart introduces the study’s objectives and the lower part
asksabout the use of business strategy formulations (Articles IXand
X). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
32
4.2 Screenshots from the online questionnaire where the
upperpart asks about model types used and the lower part includesa
Likert scale on the use of models for alignment (Articles IXand X).
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
5.1 The Unified Business Strategy Meta-Model (UBSMM). . . . .
42
7.1 An overview of UBSMM as a class aggregation of
businessstrategy formulations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . 74
7.2 A screenshot from the ADOxx meta-modeling environmentfor
SMBSC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
A.1 UBSMM class hierarchy implemented in ADOxx. . . . . . . .
98A.2 UBSMM.SMBSC Perspectives implemented in ADOxx. . . . 99A.3
UBSMM constraints sample implemented in ADOxx. . . . . . 100A.4
Simplified Strategy Map and Balanced Scorecards of a regional
airline (taken from
https://balancedscorecard.org/Portals/0/PDF/Regional_Airline.pdf).
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
https://balancedscorecard.org/Portals/0/PDF/Regional_Airline.pdfhttps://balancedscorecard.org/Portals/0/PDF/Regional_Airline.pdf
-
A.5 The Strategy Map and Balanced Scorecards of a regional
air-line (Figure A.4) modeled in i* based on the mappings of
TableA.1 using the Modeling Toolkit of ADOxx. . . . . . . . . . .
104
A.6 The Value Chain of IKEA (Table A.4) modeled in i* basedon
the mappings of Table A.2 using the Modeling Toolkit ofADOxx. . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
A.7 The Strategy Canvas for Red One (taken from:
http://www.innovationmanagement.se/2013/10/04/red-one-a-blue-ocean-in-the-cinematographic-camera-industry).
. . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
A.8 The Strategy Canvas for Red One (Figure A.7) modeled ini*
based on the mappings of Table A.3 using the ModelingToolkit of
ADOxx. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
B.1 Code snippet showing part of the generic intentional
elementspecification. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . 110
B.2 Code snippet showing part of the rules engine that includes
themean-ends and parts of the decomposition rules. . . . . . . . .
111
B.3 The Financial and Customer perspectives of the Strategy
Mapand Balanced Scorecards of a regional airline (based on
FigureA.4) modeled in i* based on the mappings of Table A.1
usingthe mobile application running on an iPad 2. . . . . . . . . .
. 112
B.4 The Internal and Learning & Growth perspectives of the
Strat-egy Map and Balanced Scorecards of a regional airline
(basedon Figure A.4) modeled in i* based on the mappings of
TableA.1 using the mobile application running on an iPad 2. . . . .
113
http://www.innovationmanagement.se/2013/10/04/red-one-a-blue-ocean-in-the-cinematographic-camera-industryhttp://www.innovationmanagement.se/2013/10/04/red-one-a-blue-ocean-in-the-cinematographic-camera-industryhttp://www.innovationmanagement.se/2013/10/04/red-one-a-blue-ocean-in-the-cinematographic-camera-industry
-
List of Tables
3.1 Philosophical assumptions for Design Science Research in
thisthesis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . 25
3.2 Research activities per DSM activity. . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . 29
4.1 Artifact requirements for UBSMM. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
36
A.1 Mappings between SMBSC and i*. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
101A.2 Mappings between VC and i*. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. 101A.3 Mappings between BOS and i*. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. 101A.4 Sample from the Value Chain of IKEA (adapted from:
http://research-
methodology.net/ikea-value-chain-analysis). . . . . . . . . . .
105
http://research-methodology.net/ikea-value-chain-analysishttp://research-methodology.net/ikea-value-chain-analysis
-
1. Introduction
Organizations typically strive to attain some long-term goal
(vision) with adefined purpose (mission) following a general plan,
which is commonly ex-pressed through strategy. Strategy or business
strategy is defined as the deter-mination of long-term goals and
courses of action using resources to achievethem, thus enabling
organizations to enact it [37]. Attaining a long-term busi-ness
vision and all related objectives makes strategy prone to a
changing envi-ronment, varying due to external opportunities and
threats as well as internalstrengths and weaknesses.
Information technology (IT) pervades all sectors of today’s
organizations,regardless whether they are consuming IT means,
developing IT means orboth. The continuous emergence of
technological advancements constitutesIT increasingly significant
for the business of any organization, which makesthe utilization of
novel IT means necessary. Therefore, IT constitutes an im-pact
factor for the success of strategy.
Alignment between the business and IT has been long-time
discussed andacknowledged to impact the success of the business. As
early as in 1961, orga-nizational performance has been attributed
to coherence between factors likestrategy, structure, and
technology, aiming at aligning an organization with itsenvironment
and internal resources to support this alignment [28]. Since
thenalignment between business strategy and IT has been
acknowledged as a criti-cal factor. Particularly, strategy
influences IT planning, which leads to focuseduse of IT, and thus
improves organizational performance [36]. Consequently,strategy
dissemination across an organization is enhanced, which ensures
thatIT means are defined, designed and utilized in accordance to
strategic needs.Organizations aligning their business strategy to
IT outperform those that donot [34; 83; 94] and increase their
performance and profits [40; 139].
Stakeholders from each domain involved have acknowledged
alignment asan open issue: top management from the Strategic
Management domain [99];IT executives from IT [154]. It is a
multifaceted and complex issue with severaldimensions and levels
[36], which consequently can be addressed holisticallyor partially
in different ways and from various perspectives [35].
In one direction, business strategy encapsulates a general
undetailed planof action. It encompasses a certain and typically
long period of time to achievesome vision. Therefore, for an
enterprise to define the means required for
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its successful execution, also making clear for IT what business
stakeholdersneed, business strategy should be understood and
communicated. This is ex-pressed through business strategy
formulations (e.g. the value chain [133]) thatcombine
natural-language and often diagrammatic representations to shapeand
communicate business strategy. From the other direction, IT
comprise theessential information needed to build the information
systems (IS) that exe-cute, support and facilitate business
operations intended at delivering offeringsto customers.
Therefore, alignment spans across business strategy, expressing
the busi-ness, and IS, expressing IT while supporting and adding
value to the business.The linkage between business strategy and IS
aims to coordinate strategic ini-tiatives and plans with IS, to
setup the infrastructure, design the processes anddefine the
capabilities required to support business operations and thus,
real-ize strategic initiatives [139]. These are typically
represented through variousmodels used in IS (e.g. process models,
goal models, requirements models,value models, etc.), which
altogether can be referred to as IS models.
1.1 Research Problem
Many approaches exist for shaping and defining business
strategy, as well asvarious IS models (Figure 1.1). This creates a
many-to-many relationship be-tween business strategy formulations
employed and IS models used. Whilethis linkage has not been put
forward widely as a distinctive perspective ofalignment [35],
substantial work has been done on linking business strategywith IS
models. However, current proposals addressing this linkage are
eitherfocusing on IS models and consider strategy abstractly or
they are consideringa particular business strategy formulation and
are thus, bounded to the speci-ficities of the business strategy
formulation used.
Proposals that focus on IS models, such as enterprise modeling
(EM) andenterprise architecture (EA), deal with strategy in an
abstract way and do notconsider particular business strategy
formulations. Examples include, but arenot limited to, the
following: the works of [120] putting forward a map-drivenprocess
modeling approach based on intentions and strategies capable of
ab-stracting organizational goals and their achievement from
detailed businessprocesses; the 3g framework for business-IT
alignment proposed by Singh andWoo [146], which is based on
multidisciplinary goal concepts and focuses onlinking task goals to
strategic business goals; GQM+Strategies [18], which ex-tends the
original GQM method for validation of system properties
throughgoal-driven metrics [17]; the Enterprise modeling approach
[33], CREWS-L’Ecritoire [138]; the model-supported IS alignment of
IS architecture [122];
2
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the GRAAL framework for architecture alignment [167], the
e3value to i* ap-proach [51]; the INSTAL method [73].
Figure 1.1: Linkage for alignment between strategy and IS.
Moreover, while EA proposals include some business elements or
layersthat affect IS, there exists no linkage to distinct business
strategy formulations[92]. Examples of such EA proposals include,
but are not limited to, the fol-lowing: TOGAF [56]; the Zachman
Framework[170]; ARIS [141]; GERAM[20]; as well as the ISO/IEC/IEEE
42010 on Architecture Description[70].
Proposals that consider a particular business strategy
formulation are lim-ited because their linkage to IS remains
relevant only to the business strategyformulation employed. In this
way, other business strategy formulations arenot applicable and
relationships to other enterprise models that provide ad-ditional
perspectives for IS are also not applicable. Such proposals
typicallycombine business strategy formulations from strategic
management (e.g. thevalue chain [133], balanced scorecards [74],
strategy maps [81]) with variousIS models typically used for system
requirements, where these models aimat making clear to
practitioners (i.e. developers, system engineers, etc.) whatusers
need with respect to a system. More specifically, approaches within
goal-oriented requirements engineering (GORE) [162], such as i*
[168], GRL [96],
3
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Tropos [23], the Business Motivation Model (BMM) [24], etc. aim
at link-ing stakeholders’ objectives with IS. Examples include, but
are not limited to,the following: the work of [11] with direct
informal mappings of i*[168] tostrategy maps[81]; the proposal of
[21] relating principles for competition andeffective business
performance with the goal-oriented requirements language(GRL)[96];
the combination of goal analysis with the balanced
scorecards[74]proposed by [145]; and the combination of enterprise
modeling through EKD[26; 97] with balanced scorecards [74] proposed
by [117].
For the first group of proposals, the problem is that business
strategy isconsidered abstractly overlooking concrete strategic
notions that can be foundin formulations such as the value chain
[133], balanced scorecards [74] andstrategy maps [81]. This hinders
tracing IS requirements to strategic notionsand consequently
hinders their alignment, which in turn hinders the evaluationof IS
requirements with respect to strategy. The second group of
proposalsovercomes the aforementioned problem as strategy is not
addressed abstractly.However, they are only relevant to the
strategy formulation and the IS modelsemployed. Should there be any
change in any of the two sides of the linkage,alignment would be
compromised.
1.2 Research Question
From a strategic perspective, alignment is a core concern and
top issue forexecutives [98]. From an IS perspective, alignment is
also a core concern andtop issue [154] with strategy dissemination
and understanding within organiza-tions often proclaimed to be
problematic — even unknown — to practitioners[29], and even if
strategy is clear enough it often results in solutions imple-mented
on different technologies for every strategic initiative [139].
Therefore, there is a need to address the linkage between
strategy and ISindependently of business strategy formulations
employed and IS models used.This requires a solution that can be
widely applicable, and thus, frames the re-search question of this
thesis to address the aforementioned problem:
How can business strategy formulations be conceptualized to
establish a model-based linkage between strategy and IS in
organizations?
The purpose for addressing this question can be found in the
practical benefitsof stakeholders for both domains: IS
practitioners as well as both IT and busi-ness executives. For IS
practitioners, answering the question would provide away to
introduce and integrate strategic intent (objectives, initiatives,
etc.) intheir work, and consequently frame and scope IS
development. This meansthat IS will become more associated to
strategy giving purpose and ways to
4
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assess contribution and performance with respect to strategic
intent. For busi-ness executives, answering the question would
allow for improved utilizationof IS making more explicit the
purpose it serves, the impact it has on strategicplanning, and the
value it brings to the business.
Additionally, the research question is particularly scoped to
the linkage be-tween business strategy and IS. In the greater
context of alignment, addressingthis problem would complement
efforts entailing this linkage. An example ofsuch approach is the
Strategic Alignment Model (SAM) that includes a linkagebetween
Business Strategy and I/S Infrastructure & Processes [61; 63].
More-over, addrssing this problem would also complement proposals
focusing onother IS models than IS requirements as well as on other
alignment perspec-tives.
1.3 Research Goals
Addressing the research question involves two domains: Strategic
Manage-ment and Information Systems. This suggests relating
approaches and meth-ods across domains and constitutes the solution
scope of the research questionthat can be achieved with the
following goals:
Goal 1. Build a unified business strategy meta-model to link
business strategywith IS.
Goal 2. Link business strategy formulations to IS through
mappings of theUnified Business Strategy Meta-Model to IS
models.
The solution is aimed at addressing the aforementioned
shortcomings ofexisting proposals: abstract use of business
strategy in IS, EM and EA, andlimited direct informal mappings. It
entails the introduction and implemen-tation of modeling principles
in the context of the linkage between businessstrategy and IS.
Particularly the development of a unified business
strategymeta-model integrating prevalent business strategy
formulations that can belinked to IS (Goal 1). Such a meta-model
can then be related to IS modelsthrough mappings (Goal 2)
establishing the alignment linkage between busi-ness strategy and
IS, and consequently reinforcing traceability and assessmentof IS
with respect to strategic intent and initiatives.
The proposal leverages characteristics from Model-driven
Development[8] such as traceability and automation. Traceability
across notions in strat-egy models and notions in IS models allows
for strategic intent and initiativesto be linked with related IS
aspects. For example, particular IS features can betraced onto a
particular strategic goal influencing its achievement. This
allows
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for propagation and assessment of features and/or changes from
business strat-egy such as strategic goals, targets, and
objectives, which makes changes lesslikely to creating problems.
Additionally, traceability makes IS adapTable andmaintainable to
strategy because any modifications due to
business/strategicdecisions can be directly associated to relevant
aspects of IS and thus mak-ing their impact assessable (e.g. system
disruptions and conflicts). Based ontraceability, the proposal also
enables different levels of automation. The con-ceptual mappings
between strategic notions and IS models can be implementedinto
tools to operationalize the proposal either through manual,
semi-automaticor automatic operations. Practitioners benefit from
traceability and automationbecause these MDD characteristics
enhance the IS synchronicity with businessstrategy and response to
strategic changes.
1.4 Key Concepts
Business Strategy
Strategic planning refers to the determination of typically long
term-goalsand courses of actions using resources required to
achieve them, which con-sequently sets up the organizational
structure to enact it [37]. In StrategicManagement literature the
term corporate strategy is used for the overarchingstrategy of
organizations with different business units, and business
strategyrefers to the strategy of such business units [6; 7].
Moreover, different types ofstrategy may also exist in different
areas of focus within an organization; e.g.financial strategy to
govern fiscal policy, customer strategy to govern how cus-tomers
are handled, etc. In this thesis, business strategy defines the way
for anorganization to actualize their goal (vision) and fulfill
their purpose (mission),and therefore, encompasses strategy for an
organization regardless of units andareas of focus.
Business Strategy Formulation
A concretization of the way for an organization to actualize
their goal (vi-sion) and fulfill their purpose (mission) is
required for the operationalizationof business strategy, which
allows for business strategy to be conveyed as anexecutable plan
across an organization and successfully implemented [150].
Abusiness strategy formualtion is the outcome of concretizing
business strategyinto an executable plan. Approaches and methods
guiding this concretiza-tion of business strategy include, but are
not limited to, the following: the FiveForces of Michael Porter
[132], the universal strategy formulation model [156],etc. which
all provide a guiding template for strategy. The outcome of
these
6
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is business strategy formulations that represent and
operationalize the busi-ness strategy of an organization. In this
thesis, business strategy formulationrefers to established
diagrammatic and natural language-based representationsof
approaches within the discipline of strategic management used to
formulatebusiness strategy.
Information Systems (IS)
The study of information technology (IT) deployment in
organizations [64]is concerned with both the technological and
social systems together, as wellas by phenomena emerging upon their
interaction [93]. With respect to gen-eral systems definition [9],
IS encompasses the interaction of technologicalelements and people
use to collect, filter, process, create, and distribute data.
Models, Meta-Models, and IS Models
A model is an abstraction of reality; a meta-model is an
abstraction of a modelcapturing notions and rules about the model
itself [159]. Within a particulardomain of interest, a meta-model
captures the design foundations and con-stitutes an explicit model
of the concepts and rules required to build models[8; 160]. More
generally, a meta-model defines the conceptual elements ofa
language as well as their possible interrelations [58], and
therefore, it is anexplicit model of the concepts and rules
required to build models.
The Unified Business Strategy Meta-Model (UBSMM) constitutes the
uni-fication of business strategy concepts based upon which
conceptualizations ofbusiness strategy formulations can be created
and thereafter instantiated (rel-evant to Goal 1 of the thesis). In
accordance to both the OMG modeling in-frastructure as discussed in
[8] and the modeling hierarchy in [82] UBSMMconstitutes an explicit
model of the conceptual elements, their relationships,and
constraints required to build the conceptualization of a business
strategyformulation. It provides the building blocks needed to
model a business strat-egy formulation allowing to be used within
the scope of work of this thesis,either manually or in a
semi-automatically. Conceptualizations built in thescope of this
thesis, are represented in the form of UML conceptual
models,because UML is widely accepted as a standard approach for
developing con-ceptual models[148].
An IS model denotes a model describing some aspect of IS
(relevant toGoal 1 of the thesis). Examples include process models,
goal models, datamodels, requirements models, business models, etc.
Additionally, this alsoincludes enterprise modeling (EM), which
models organization design [57;97], as well as enterprise
architecture (EA), which includes architecture modelsof an
organization [92].
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Linkage
Linkage has been used as a synonym of alignment [61], similarly
to fit, har-mony and integration [10]. In this thesis, linkage
refers to the connection be-tween business strategy and IS, where
one affects the other, and is the contextof the problem addressed:
the shortcomings of existing proposals linking busi-ness strategy
with IS. Moreover, the term linkage is used in the same manneras in
the SAM [61; 63], which is the most cited work in alignment and
con-stitutes an essential point of reference (more than 2800
citations on Googlescholar on 2014.01.27). In the SAM, the linkage
indicates a cross-domain linkthat captures the bidirectional
connection between Business Strategy and I/Sinfrastructure &
processes. This entails the implications of a business strategyin
terms of organizational and management processes as well as the
impacton requirements for IS. Additionally, this linkage reinforces
the utilization ofIS in the execution of business strategy, and
also through IS requirements pro-vides assessment of I/S
infrastructure & processes, implications on IT strategicchoices
as well as their impact on business strategy [61]. Also, it is
throughthis linkage that how IS impacts business strategy becomes
clear; by specify-ing processes, roles, architectures, and all
other IS aspects required. Therefore,establishing this linkage
requires business strategy to be analyzed and decom-posed to become
compatible with IS.
1.5 Disposition
The remainder of this thesis is structured with Chapter 2
presenting an ex-tended background on business strategy and
elaborating on alignment as wellas on IS models. Chapter 3
discusses research methodology and presents theresearch process
followed. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 are respectively presenting
theresearch process followed from problem explication and
requirements set, todesign and development, as well as to
demonstration and evaluation. Chapter7 holds a discussion around
UBSMM. Chapter 8 presents concluding remarksand sets directions for
further research. The Appendix presents prototype
toolimplementations related to UBSMM. An implementation of UBSMM in
adesktop modeling and development environment generating business
strategymodels, and an early version of implementation for UBSMM in
a mobile tool.Finally, the Articles Section includes the complete
articles accompanying thisthesis.
8
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2. Extended Background
Addressing particular business strategy formulations and
motivating compre-hensive coverage for the purpose of building
UBSMM requires an explorationof the notion of business strategy
from the discipline of Strategic Management,from which it stems.
Therefore, background on strategy is presented to pro-vide
justification for the selection of the business strategy
formulations usedfor UBSMM. This chapter, also includes a section
discussing alignment to po-sition this work, as well as a section
elaborating on IS models and how theyare used in the context of the
alignment linkage and UBSMM.
2.1 Business Strategy
Strategic planning is the process during which a strategy is
defined by ana-lyzing the current status of the enterprise and the
competitive environment inwhich it resides. Business strategy is
the determination of typically long term-goals and courses of
actions using resources required to achieve them, whichconsequently
sets up the organizational structure to enact it [37].
Businessstrategy defines the way for an organization to actualize
their goal (vision) andfulfill their purpose (mission).
Attaining long-term goals makes business strategy prone to
change, thus,formulating strategy entails providing ways to change
strategic thrusts andchange strategic capabilities accordingly [7].
Particularly, it is the changingenvironment that affects strategy
formulation and consequently implementa-tion due to internal or
external developments[6]. The former refers to leverag-ing internal
strengths and avoiding internal weaknesses, while the latter
refersto leveraging external opportunities and foreseeing external
threats. Upon thisidea the SWOT analysis has been introduced
(Figure 2.1), a method still widelyused today and whose origins has
been attributed to many [6; 126].
From a different standpoint, Henry Mintzberg defined strategy in
five com-plementary ways: as a plan, as a plot, as a pattern, as a
position, and as aperspective (the Five Ps)[112], He too agreed on
the importance of communi-cating and coordinating strategy across
the organization. What he referred toas strategy programming and
entails three steps [110]; (i) codifying, clarify-ing and
expressing strategy sufficiently clear to render it formally
operational,
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Figure 2.1: Commonly used SWOT analysis adapted from [6].
(ii) elaboration, breaking down strategy into sub-strategies and
action plansto realize them, and (iii) conversion, considering the
effect of changes in theorganization’s operations, thus restating
objectives, reworking budgets, etc.
Barney [15] identified three types of strategy-shaping logic
upon the con-cept of competition in microeconomics. He suggested
that the following threetypes are complementary to each other [15],
and thus, strategy that considersall of them increases the
likelihood of sustainability and prosperity:
• The “Industrial organization” type, based on [12; 13; 104],
suggests thatthe competitive advantage is a result of a firm’s
clear positioning withrespect to its environment, which is
described by the structure of theindustrial setting. This entails
entry barriers to the industry, like thenumber of competitors and
their size, the degree of product or servicedifferentiation among
them, and the demand for the industry.
• The “Chamberlinian" or "resource-based” type, based on [32;
166], suggeststhat the competitive advantage of a firm depends
mainly on the firm’sunique capabilities provided by its resources
and know how allowing afirm to exploit its individuality and
uniqueness.
• The “Schumpeterian" type, based on [143; 144], suggests that
unanticipatedand radical innovations are capable of disrupting the
industrial environ-ment in which a firm operates, thereby giving
opportunities to take anadvantage over companies whose capability
to innovate is lower.
An example of the complementary nature of strategy-shaping logic
can beidentified in the Dynamic Capabilities [155] approach to
strategy, which sug-gests a combination of the resource-based and
the Schumpeterian views. A
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firm’s competitive advantage is based on its capability to
establish and main-tain such flexible competencies and structures
both internally and externallythat will allow rapid response to
product innovations by transforming and re-configuring itself.
Similarly to the definitional variation of strategy, more
groupings of strategy-shaping logic exist, such as Mintzberg’s Ten
School of Thought [111], synthe-sized by defining strategy with the
five Ps and using other base disciplines (i.e.psychology, political
sociology, anthropology, etc.).
2.2 Business Strategy Formulations
Adopting a certain logic for shaping business strategy is a
crucial step. How-ever, successful business strategy implementation
relies on communicationacross an organization to provide
visibility, understanding, and purpose of thestrategic intent as
well as both the vision and the mission [110; 150]. There-fore,
formulating strategy to address such changes becomes more
complex.Moreover, communicating strategy entails linking those
defining it (strategy),such as decision makers and executives, with
those upon whom its (strategy’s)execution relies, such as
practitioners and employees. Along with people, com-munication of
business strategy requires linking, products and services
withprocesses, activities, and tasks allocated to them [80]. This
paints a rather com-plex picture for business strategy formulations
as they need to be expressed ina concise way that reflects the
logic shaping business strategy while simulta-neously enhancing its
dissemination across an organization.
The selection of candidate business strategy formulations for
UBSMM isbased on Barney’s three complementary types [15]. Claiming
complete cover-age would suggest that all existing formulations for
each type are used, whichis not practical and almost impossible.
Therefore, for comprehensive coverageof strategy notions, a single
strategy formulation from each type is selected.As strategic
management evolves, new formulations may emerge that couldchallenge
any claim of coverage. Additionally, exclusiveness should also
bestressed, which suggests that the formulations selected are not
excluding oth-ers from being used. Another aspect of the selection
entails the alignmentproposals discussed in Chapter 1, with
business strategy formulations used inthese proposals being natural
candidates for UBSMM. This will allow theseproposals to leverage
UBSMM.
The business strategy formulations included in alignment
proposals dis-cussed in Chapter 1 are Strategy Maps and Balanced
Scorecards [81] usedin [11], and the Value Chain [133] used in
[21]. The former belongs to the"resource-based" type and the latter
is the most exemplary of the "industrialorganization" type.
Moreover, results from an empirical study reported in this
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thesis indicate that both the Value Chain, and Strategy Maps and
BalancedScorecards are business strategy formulations widely used
(articles IX andX). Respondents identified these formulations in
their company’s strategy by52.2% 26.1% and 30.4% respectively
(Strategy Maps and Balanced Scorecardshave been presented
separately as they have been developed separately[74;81]).
For the "Schumpeterian" type, no alignment effort is identified
using abusiness strategy formulation of such strategy-shaping
logic. Blue Ocean Strat-egy [84] has been selected as a candidate
formulation for this type of strategylogic. The core contention of
Blue Ocean Strategy is value innovation: pro-vide a new offering
beyond the structure and boundaries of existing industriesmaking
current markets and competitors irrelevant and obsolete. Blue
Ocean’sstrategy-shaping logic is aligned with the "Schumpeterian"
type of unantic-ipated innovations that displace competitors from
an industry. Blue OceanStrategy has been attracting a great deal of
attention recently, and in the afore-mentioned study it was
identified by 8.7% of respondents in their company’sstrategy
(articles IX and X).
These business strategy formulations are further elaborated in
the remain-der of this chapter as they are used for building UBSMM
along with the addi-tion of the Value Shop and the Value Network,
which constitute evolutionaryadditions on the Value Chain that
altogether constitute the Value Configura-tion. The formulations
selected for UBSMM are accompanied with tools andmethods beyond the
SWOT analysis and other generic ones i.e. the 5 Forcesframework
[132] for the Value Chain, and the Four-Action Framework [84]
forBlue Ocean Strategy. However, focus is put on capturing the
strategic notionsof the business strategy formulations to be
integrated into UBSMM. Examplesof more candidate formulations
include, but are not limited to, the following:the Miles & Snow
Typology [45; 107], Six Sigma [59; 127], and the Deltamodel
[60].
2.2.1 The Value Chain
Michael Porter’s work is focused on competition, arguing there
are two optionsfor success in a competitive environment:
differentiation and low cost [133].Accompanied by a company’s
desired targeted market segment they result inthree generic
strategies: cost leadership; differentiation; and focus.
Porter’s value chain highlights a company’s strategy and
strategy imple-mentation depending on how the activities are
carried out (Figure 2.2a). Itconsists of value activities and
margin. Value activities are all the activitiesa company performs
to create value for its buyers, divided into primary andsupport,
while margin is the difference between the total value and the
total
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cost of performing the value activities.From a competitive
advantage perspective and across primary and support
activities, activities are further grouped into three types:
direct (activities thatcreate value), indirect (activities that
allow the direct one to be performed), andquality assurance,
(ensuring the quality of direct and indirect activities).
(a) The Value Chain (takenfrom [133]).
(b) The Value Shop (takenfrom [151]).
(c) The Value Network (takenfrom [151]).
Figure 2.2: The Value Configuration.
Each activity is classified based on its contribution to a
firm’s competitiveadvantage, primarily from an economic view: those
that have high impact ofdifferentiation and those that have a
considerable proportion of cost. Valueactivities interact with each
other within the value chain via linkages, whichare relationships
between the way a value activity is performed and the costof
another (e.g. the dotted lines in Figure 2.2a). They support
optimizationand coordination among value activities — thus
competitive advantage andmay exist between multiple value chains.
Porter identifies ten generic driversfor cost and value, which
shape the competitive position of the firm: scale,capacity,
utilization, linkages, interrelationships, vertical integration,
locationtiming, learning, policy decisions, and government
regulations. Value chains
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are linked sequentially (suppliers, producers, and distributors)
by adding valueto what the preceding activity has produced, whereas
the value creation logicis focused on cost, towards a desirable
margin.
2.2.2 The Value Shop and The Value Network
Stabell and Fjeldstad [151] introduced the idea of a Value
Configuration (VC)extending the Value Chain by introducing the
Value Shop (Figure 2.2b) and theValue Network (Figure 2.2c). In the
former, the value creation logic focuseson value: it is created by
using resources and activities to resolve a customerproblem and is
structured spirally, interchanging problem-solving and
imple-mentation activities. In the latter, the value creation logic
focuses on balancingcost and value: value is created by
facilitating relationships among a networkof enterprises and their
customers via a mediating technology, and is struc-tured by
simultaneously and in parallel forming horizontally
interconnectedactivities.
2.2.3 Strategy Maps and Balanced Scorecards
Strategy maps and balanced scorecards (SMBSC) have been proposed
by Ka-plan and Norton to represent, communicate and monitor
business strategy aswell as strategic objectives.
A strategy map serves as a mediator between the mission, core
values, thevision, and the strategy of an enterprise to the work
performed. Kaplan andNorton have proposed a template for strategy
maps (Figure 2.3) representinghow an organization can create value
[78; 81] that places the framework as oneof the few providing means
for visual representation of strategy. The recom-mended way to
build a strategy map is to follow a top-down manner beginningfrom a
mission statement and core values to develop a strategic vision,
whichshould project the organization’s overall goal [77].
Scorecards consist of strategic objectives and related measures,
which in-clude concrete targets and initiatives towards their
achievement [74]. Score-cards are structured with cause-effect
links/assumptions and their monitoringand assessment is essential
for identifying interdependencies across an organi-zation. Balanced
scorecards (BSC) present an organization’s business activi-ties
through a number of measures typically from four organizational
perspec-tives — financial, customer, internal, learning and growth
— and provides alanguage to communicate priorities within an
enterprise [121]. A scorecardis considered balanced (BSC) due to
the four perspectives that provide cov-erage of business processes,
while the time aspect is addressed indirectly viashort-term targets
set and also via the bottom up view of the four perspectives.
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Figure 2.3: The Strategy Map template (taken from [78]).
Additionally a scorecard is also considered balanced because it
covers both theinternal as well as the external aspects of an
enterprise.
A strategy map is a general representation of the four
organizational per-spectives of the BSC [74] in a cause-effect
manner and facilitates the commu-nication of direction and
priorities across the enterprise and according to [78;81]. It is
based on five principles:
• Strategy balances long-term financial commitments aiming at
profitable rev-enue growth and short-term financial commitments
aiming at cost reduc-tions and productivity improvements (financial
perspective).
• Strategy is based on differentiated and clearly articulated
customer valueproposition (customer perspective).
• Value is created through focused, effective and aligned
internal business pro-cesses in four groups: operations management;
customer management;innovation; and regulatory and social (internal
perspective).
• Strategic alignment determines the value and role of
intangible assets: hu-mans, information, and organization (learning
and growth perspective).
• Strategy consists of simultaneous, complementary themes
highlighting themost critical processes supporting the customer
value proposition.
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2.2.4 Blue Ocean Strategy
The Blue Ocean Strategy approach [84; 85] focuses on unknown
market spaceand thus aims at competing where there are no
competitors. Industry’s struc-tural conditions are not considered
fixed and therefore, the objective is neitherdifferentiation nor
low cost. The goal is to break existing rules and create newones as
illustrated through the strategy canvas (Figure 2.4).
Figure 2.4: The Strategy Canvas capturing a Blue Ocean Strategy
(takenfrom [84]).
The strategy canvas offers a graphical representation of the
current statein known markets by identifying the range of factors
an industry competes onand invests in (horizontal axis in Figure
2.4) along with the offering level tobuyers for each factor
(vertical axis in Figure 2.4). A basic component of thestrategy
canvas is the value curve capturing a company’s relative
performanceacross the aforementioned competition factors of any
given market.
Blue Ocean Strategy is equipped with a set of tools/techniques
to analyzeand assess an industry’s market space, focusing on value
innovation and there-after to derive the strategy canvas. A core
tool/technique is the Four-ActionFramework, which challenges
current strategic logic and drives change. Elim-inating and
reducing focuses on dropping the current cost structure,
whereas,creating and rising strive for how-to in terms of lifting
buyer value and creatingnew demand. With the assistance of the
eliminate-reduce-raise-create grid, theFour-Action Framework goes
beyond analysis by pushing for action and thuscreates a new value
curve.
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2.3 Alignment
Alignment scopes the context of this thesis and the research
problem is posi-tioned in this linkage between business strategy
and IS. As pointed out in [10],alignment has carried different
aliases: it has been termed as linkage or fit inHenderson and [62],
fit in [134], as harmony in [101]. However, alignment hasbeen
consistently defined as the integration of business strategy and
IT, whereearly definitions call for IT strategy [63], and more
recent ones refer to IT ingeneral [100]. McKeen and Smith suggest
that alignment exists when goalsand actions of the business are in
harmony with the IS supporting them [106].Abraham [1] defined
alignment as the linkage between the goals of the busi-ness, which
quantify the progress of the strategy implementation, and the
goalsof each of the key contributors, such as IT. Alignment allows
for strategy to uti-lize the capabilities of IT to enhance a
decision maker’s perception of businessperformance [140]. The
Strategic Alignment Model (SAM) [61; 63] summa-rizes alignment with
domains, fundamental dimensions and relationships (rep-resented as
boxes and bi-directional arrows respectively — Figure 2.5) andis
one of the most cited works in alignment constituting an essential
point ofreference (more than 2800 citations on Google scholar on
2014.01.20).
Figure 2.5: The Strategic Alignment Model (SAM) taken from
[61].
The SAM portrays a generic map for alignment in an organization
withtwo fundamental dimensions. Strategic integration refers to the
fit betweenexternal and internal domains — strategy and
infrastructure respectively —for both business and IT indicated
through the perpendicular bi-directional ar-rows; business strategy
should be aligned with internal structures and businessfunctions,
and similarly, IT structures and operations should be aligned
with
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the IT strategy they are meant to facilitate. Functional
integration refers to thefit between business and IT both for
strategy as well as internal structure, whichis indicated by the
horizontal bi-directional arrows. Business strategy shouldbe
aligned with IT strategy for realizing value from IT investments.
Similarly,internal structures and business operations should be
aligned with IS structuresand operations. Two additional types of
relationships can be identified in theSAM, which are together
referred to as cross-domain alignment, and are pre-sented through
the diagonal bi-directional arrows. Linkage refers to
analyzingbusiness strategy to define requirements for IS structures
and processes, whileAutomation refers to the potential of IT to
shape or change the internal struc-ture and business
operations.
The research problem addressed in this thesis is positioned in
the center ofthe Strategic Alignment Model (SAM) [61; 63] and
particularly at the linkagebetween Business Strategy and I/S
Infrastructure and Processes (Figure 2.5).Cross-domain alignment
such as the one denoted by this linkage requires thespecification
of IS components and structures such as inputs, processes,
out-puts, actors, and rules to relate how IS impacts business
strategy [61]. There-fore, business strategy needs to be understood
and analyzed for requirementson IS to be defined, which can be
achieved by establishing a model-based link-age between business
strategy and IS. Establishing such a model-based linkageentails IS
models laying on one side while the UBSMM lays on the other
withmappings between them.
This approach is based on ideas developed in the Unified
Enterprise Mod-eling Language (UEML) whose objective has been to
create a framework forinteroperability of enterprise modeling
languages by defining a core languagefor enterprise and IS modeling
[4]. The UEML approach analyzed a number ofexisting modeling
languages by mapping their constructs onto a common andwell-defined
ontological base. By doing so, the understanding of concepts
ofexisting languages was improved and it was possible to
progressively grow alarger ontology containing well connected
concepts by extending the ontolog-ical base. A similar approach is
applied for UBSMM with the aim to define acore meta-model for
business strategy modeling by analyzing business
strategyformulations and mapping them onto model types used in IS,
aka establishinga model-based linkage between business strategy and
IS.
2.4 IS Models
Models have always been fundamental when it comes to IS
development, de-scribing the domain, data and data operations [27].
Systems modeling entailsthe use of models to conceptualize and
build IS. The term "IS models" is usedto distinguish the use of the
term "model" from other disciplines such as man-
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agement, psychology, etc. IS models are used to describe an IS
or some aspectof it, components and structures such as inputs,
processes, outputs, actors, andrules. This interpretation of IS
models encompasses all that is included in theI/S Infrastructure
and Processes of the strategic alignment model (Figure 2.5).The
terms "IS model" and "IS modeling" has also been used in [4] in a
similarway, however, it has been distinguished from enterprise
model and enterprisemodeling respectively, though the distinction
is rather implicit.
IS models share characteristics based on the languages used for
their de-velopment; they are diagrammatic with set vocabulary, they
utilize abstractionmechanisms, have formal syntax, and are meant to
have general applicabilityacross problem domains [88].
There exist different ways to categorize IS models depending on
the pur-pose served. For example IS models can be used for (but not
limited to):making sense of a current situation, communication
between people, analysisof the current state against a future
desired state, quality assurance with respectto some policy,
recommendation or standard, deployment of a future desiredstate
into an IS currently in operation, providing guidance in
development [89].
Additionally, a plethora of modeling perspectives exists
depending on theIS aspects meant to be described. Recently, an
overview classification hasbeen synthesized in [89] which consists
of eight perspectives: behavioral,functional, structural, goal and
rule, object, communication, actor and role,and topological. While
this classification constitutes a synthesis encompass-ing dominant
existing modeling perspectives such as [25; 42; 147; 164], it
isacknowledged by the authors in [89] that there is still an
overlap of specificmodeling approaches across these perspectives,
which is considered unavoid-able. This suggests that establishing
commonly accepted, clear-cut criteria todistinguish between
modeling perspectives, and therefore types of IS mod-els, is not
relevant. Therefore, types of IS models used in this thesis
havebeen identified based on the scope of work. Considering the
context beingthe alignment linkage any IS model becomes relevant as
it corresponds to theI/S Infrastructure and Processes of the
Strategic Alignment Model (SAM), asindicated above. However, the
research problem has been scoped to the short-comings of existing
proposals in Requirements Engineering (RE), EnterpriseModeling (EM)
and Enterprise Architecture (EA), which constitute
particularperspectives for IS modeling. Therefore, "IS models"
refers to models used inRE, EM, and EA.
IS models used in RE describe requirements for system
development andexamples include data-flow models, entity
relationship models, informationand object models [149], goal
models [25; 43; 116; 161], and conceptual mod-els [69; 91;
128].
EM is focused on the organizational design of an enterprise,
holistically
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and/or partially, by describing aspects such as structure,
processes, rules, in-formation, resources, people, behavior, goals,
and constraints [57; 97]. De-pending on the approach followed,
various models may describe different or-ganizational perspectives
such as process models, value models, requirementsmodels, resource
models, information models, goal models, business models,which
altogether constitute information and knowledge about the
enterpriserequired for its operations [26; 46].
Finally, EA is focused on the enterprise by describing the
organizationalstructure, business processes, information systems
and infrastructure throughprinciples, methods, and models [92]. An
enterprise is described as a sys-tem structurally layered with
different viewpoints (also named layers; e.g.business layer,
operational layer, and information layer), where each viewaddresses
concerns of particular stakeholders. These views are typically
de-scribed through models whose type depends on the viewpoint
addressed (e.g.processes, information, resources, goals) [70].
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3. Research Methodology
Methodology is a Greek word, "μεθοδολογία" that consists of the
words method("μέθοδος") and logos ("λόγος"). Method is generally
defined as a set of ap-propriate principles, rules and a series of
coordinated tactics followed for theconclusion of a certain intent,
and logos means ground and reason. Conse-quently, methodology is
logos of methods: talking of methods, or better reasonof methods.
Research methodology refers to a systematic and rational analysisof
the body of research methods and principles governing scientific
investiga-tion within a particular area of study.
Research within IT revolves around three related fields:
Computer Science,which entails computer programming and code,
Software Engineering, whichis focused on production and
operationalization of software, and InformationSystems (IS), which
concerns on deployment of IT in organizations [64]. Thecontext of
this thesis is the fit between strategy and IS models, which
posi-tions the research problem as an IS research problem. IS
research is concernedby both the technological and social systems
together, as well as by phenom-ena emerging upon their interaction
[93]. Vaishnavi and Kuechler name IS amulti-paradigmatic community
[157]; different sets of practice define IS as ascientific
discipline and researchers can take different stands following
differ-ent paths when investigating IS research problems.
These differences influence a series of research concerns. For
example:what should be observed; what kind of questions should be
asked around prob-lems, how these questions should be structured,
what methods should be se-lected and how should they be applied,
what kind of results should be expected,how should these be
analyzed and how should these be interpreted. Addressingsuch
concerns is also influenced by beliefs and assumptions about the
problem,which altogether constitute a researcher’s perspective on
how to do research onthe problem faced and thus, which research
strategies and methods to choose.
Typically, a research community shares a common set of beliefs
and as-sumptions about concerns such as the aforementioned, which
affects the choiceof research methods employed. This is called a
research paradigm and shapeshow the members of a research community
perceive their discipline and con-sequently, how research methods
are chosen [72; 90].
The objective of this chapter is to discuss the research
paradigm followedin this thesis, present the research process
undertaken and reason over the
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methodological choices made to achieve the research goals set in
Chapter 1.
3.1 Research Paradigm
The scope of this thesis is the alignment linkage between
business strategy andIS. Two goals have been set: build a unified
business strategy meta-model andthen link it with IS models through
mappings. Achieving these goals entailsbuilding such a meta-model
(the process), the meta-model itself (the artifact),and anything
emerging from its use [103] (e.g. mapping to IS
requirementsmodels), what is referred in IS as design [163]:
"Design science is the scien-tific study and creation of artefacts
as they are developed and used by peoplewith the goal of solving
practical problems of general interest" [72]. DesignScience aims at
solving a distinct problem of practical nature by providing
in-novative artifacts through a design process that adheres to a
build and evaluatedesign cycle, thus seeking for utility in
effective artifacts [66].
Paradigm derives from the Greek verb "παραδείκνυμι", which means
toexhibit, represent. A research paradigm refers to a typical
example, patternor model of a research perspective within a field
of study and influences thechoices made on research methods based
on its philosophical assumptions:"..universally recognized
scientific achievements that, for a time, provide modelproblems and
solutions for a community of researchers" [90].
3.1.1 Philosophical Assumptions
A research paradigm is characterized by philosophical
assumptions expressedas concerns about reality (ontological),
knowledge (epistemological), ways toexamine reality for knowledge
(methodological), and values (axiological) thataltogether shape the
selection of research methods. Within a discipline, itpositions a
researcher’s belief system and view of the world with respect tothe
research problem being addressed, while it also provides rationale
for themethods chosen to actualize the research process.
Ontological concerns focus on reality and the researcher’s
stance towardsthe nature of reality: what exists, what is derived
[72; 158].
Epistemological concerns focus on knowledge: how can people gain
knowl-edge about the world, what does it depend on, how can one be
sure of whatthey know [72; 158].
Methodological concerns focus on the appropriateness of the ways
andprocedures used to examine reality as well as the validity of
the knowledgeproduced from them [72; 158].
Axiological concerns focus on people’s values, collectively
valuing whatresearchers hope to achieve and find, which makes a
shared value system
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within a research community [158].Dominant research paradigms
within the multi-paradigmatic IS discipline
are Positivism and Interpretivism [38; 72; 124; 158]. Other
research paradigmsinclude Social Constructivism, Pragmatism, and
Critical Realism [41; 124].All of them are discussed in terms of
their philosophical assumptions.
Positivism suggests that there exists a single reality
regardless of peopleand their experiences (ontology).
Epistemologically, phenomena observed inthe world can be explained
through cause-effect relationships and are expectedto embed
explanation, prediction, and control. Scientific knowledge allows
forverification or falsification and the strive for generalizable
results. Method-ologically, the positivist view entails
quantitative approaches aimed at provid-ing objective and bias-free
knowledge. Axiological concerns entail striving fora universal
truth supporting prediction of phenomena [38; 72; 124; 158].
Interpretivism, argues that reality is constructed by people and
their (in-ter)actions. Thus phenomena observed are dependent on
their context alongwith people’s subjectivity and through social
interaction (ontology). Episte-mologically, truth is subjective
with knowledge emerging from the active par-ticipation of the
researcher in the phenomena investigated (social
interaction).Methodologically qualitative approaches reinforce a
participatory investiga-tion of phenomena by engaging researchers
in the social environment exam-ined. The axiological view of
interpretivism entails striving for understandingand describing
including subjectivity acknowledgments affecting validity ofresults
[38; 72; 124; 158].
Social constructivism suggests that reality lies within the
world in whichpeople live and work, where subjective meanings of
their experiences are de-veloped (ontology). Epistemologically,
meanings are formed through inter-actions between people based on
as many observers’/participants’ views aspossible of a situation
examined, as well as through pre-existing norms andviews.
Methodologically, the social constructivism paradigm entails
partici-patory approaches to construct the meaning of a situation
examined throughsocial interaction, Focus is put on specific
contexts where people operate tounderstand their historical and
cultural settings. Axiological concerns focuson making sense of
meanings others have on a situation examined along withthe
researcher’s own interpretation due to their background and
experiences[41].
Pragmatism suggests that truth is not bounded by any particular
world-view or philosophy, but rather what works for the situation
examined (ontol-ogy). Epistemologically, knowledge is gained based
on examining the "what"and "how" with respect to the intended
effects. The methodological view ofpragmatism entails freedom of
choice for multiple and mixed methods andtechniques rather than
subscribing to one, based on the needs of a situation
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examined. The axiological concerns suggest making sense of what
works atthe time and what is the truth [41].
Critical realism [30; 87; 109] suggests that the real world
exists indepen-dently of our knowledge, beliefs, thoughts,
perceptions etc. whether observ-able or not (ontology).
Epistemologically, knowledge is considered social andhistorical,
where not all viewpoints must be equally valid, and exists in
differ-ent types: physical, social, and conceptual. Methodological
concerns entail arange of different research methods due to the
different knowledge types andsupports a mixed-method approach for
research. Axiologically, knowledge ofreality is a result of social
conditioning and, thus, cannot be understood inde-pendently of the
social actors involved in the knowledge derivation process.
3.1.2 A Pluralistic Research Paradigm
The emergence of design science as a scientific study within IS
has also emergedwith an idea of design science being a research
paradigm [66; 158], thoughnot widely accepted to cause a paradigm
shift [90]. Nevertheless, for designscience, IS research paradigms
can be combined in the same design scienceproject, for example
positivism and interpretivism [72].
This diverse utilization of research paradigms within design
science iscloser to the idea of a multi-methodological approach to
IS research [119]or what is commonly refereed to as pluralism.
Pluralism suggests that mixedmethod research designs are preferable
to encompass real settings, social situa-tions and research context
[108]. Therefore, research paradigms with differentphilosophical
assumptions can be utilized during each step of the research
pro-cess influencing the selection of research methods employed
[72; 158]. Par-ticularly, ontological and epistemological concerns
and views shift as a designscience project progresses [158].
Consequently, research methods can varyaccordingly due to the
different research perspectives they are rooted on [64].
In the scope of this thesis, during the early steps of the
research p
