Analyzing IT Flexibility to Enable Dynamic Capabilities

摘要

The ability to respond to change is an ongoing concern in information systems engineering. Designing flexible and adaptable information technology (IT) solutions is challenging due to difficulties in identifying and predicting adaptation needs influenced by environmental changes and enterprise competitive positioning. In this paper, we draw upon theories in strategic management, particularly conceptions of dynamic capabilities that deal with sustainable advantage, to identify and represent enterprise requirements. This research enables analysis of enterprise transformation by modeling coupling and alignment between IT and organizational capabilities using the i* framework. Potential inflexibilities and impact of changes are studied with analysis of dependency propagations. A hypothetical case using experiences from SOA and BPM implementations demonstrates use of the proposed modeling constructs.