Considering Structural Properties of Inter-organizational Network Fragments during Business-IT Alignment

Value exchange models can be used to reason about possible networked business constellations. Such inter-organizational business settings are determined in most cases solely from a financial point of view, i.e. by assessing the economic sustainability of the constellation. In this paper we discuss also other criteria that are relevant and should additionally be considered, namely the structural properties of the inter-organizational constellation itself. The multitude of possible interorganizational business constellations – and underlying systems constellations respectively – makes it a necessary requirement to split such constellations into recurring structural patterns, which we call fragments. The structural properties are helping the designer to reason about quality related issues of the inter-organizational network, and may have an influence on design choices to be made. The paper suggests to design new e-business constellations not only on the basis of financial criteria, but to consider also quality issues of the inter-organizational network.