Framework and Research Agenda for Master Data Management in Distributed Environments

Master data is the foundation for relating business transactions with business entities such as customers, products, locations etc. In master data literature these entities are also referred to as domains. The integrity, availability and timeliness of master data both as single-domain and as multi-domain combinations is crucial for business transactions in general and especially to distributed eBusiness transactions in the network of stakeholders over the Internet, or in the cloud. Distributed environments set additional challenges for the management of master data. In this idea paper, we first describe master data in the context of various data types and processes, the responsibilities on master data management as well as other typical master data management practices used to improve master data quality. We combine them into a framework, which provides a generic background description over the master data phenomenon, that is, a classification over practical means to solve shortcomings in master data. We argue that although these means are able to support the improvement of master data quality and master data management they are insufficient to capture the underlying causes of master data problems. We then and therefore investigate master data management from the IS theoretical viewpoint and finally propose a research agenda for most critical issues in master data management. We suggest that enterprise architecting could serve as a coherent framework in identifying common and specific master data management research themes for global businesses and networked governments.