Leveraging Organizational Performance Through Enterprise Business Architecture

Enterprise architecture is a conceptual IS architecture and management framework used to describe and organize and control an organization’s IS/IT structure, processes, appli-cations, systems and techniques in an integrated and cohesive way. The IS framework helps organizations to create synergy and achieve strategic alignment and consequently create business value to the organization and its shareholders and stakeholders. This the-sis presents a qualitative research study addressing the concepts of enterprise architec-ture, enterprise business architecture, strategic alignment, organizational performance and business value / business benefits. Based upon the literature, the concepts of enter-prise business architecture, business value and investment have been identified, and an analytical study of the well-known enterprise architecture frameworks has been demon-strated. It investigates the link between the IS/IT investment and organizational perfor-mance. This perspective is developed theoretically and illustrated empirically with a re-search framework that has been developed, and supported with empirical data from two big international organizations use IS/IT extensively to support their business practices. The empirical data from the two organizations are presented and analyzed, and research framework has been empirically verified. The result of the study shows that IS/IT facili-tates significant growth in productivity and gains in profitability, and creates business value to the organization and consequently satisfies its customers, shareholders and stakeholders