Stakeholder Perception of Enterprise Architecture

Enterprise Architecture (EA) is increasingly being used by large organizations to get a grip on the complexity and inflexibility of their business processes, information systems and technical infrastructure. Although seen as an important instrument to help solve major organizational problems, effectively applying EA seems no easy task. Efficient collaboration between architects and EA stakeholders is one of the main critical success factors for EA. The basis for efficient collaboration between architects and EA stakeholders is mutual understanding. In EA research, there has been much focus on the role of the architect; there is little research on the EA stakeholder. In this article we present the cognitive structure of four EA stakeholder groups, revealing how they expect the EA function to help them achieve their goals. With this we gain understanding of the EA stakeholder and provide the basis for better collaboration between architects and EA stakeholders.