A Systemic-Discursive Framework for Enterprise Architecture

This paper examines, through a case study of an Australian government agency, the systemic and discursive properties of Enterprise Architecture adoption in a government enterprise. Through the lens of Luhmann's generalised systems theory of communication, the authors argue that the manner in which organisational communication is organised throughout the EA adoption process has a noticeable impact on successful implementation. Two important conclusions are made: Firstly, successful EA adoption demands sustainable resonance of EA as a discourse communicated in the enterprise. Secondly, misunderstanding and reshaping EA as a management discourse is an inherent premise for high quality adoption. The authors propose a new theoretical model, the Enterprise Communication Ecology, as a metaphor for the communicative processes that precede, constrain, and shape EA implementations. As a result, EA as a discipline must adopt a systemic-discursive framework in order to fully understand and improve the quality of EA management programs.