The Multi-disciplinary Approach
The position of the Enterprise Architect is revealed multi-facet and multi-disciplinary in the context of the various knowledge bases the architect is intended to work in and collaborate with. The multi-disciplinary approach to this study is interpreting the business domain and IS/IT domain to have a certain interest of overlapping the business, the socio-cultural/socio-technical and the strict technical disciplines.
The multi-disciplinary approach found by this research from a universal perspective is discussed by Cabezas & Diwekar (2012) who elaborate the request of a this approach, viewed from the long-term sustainability perspective, involving the ecology of systems, economic sustainability, engineering requesting infrastructure and the socio-technical perspective on people in collaboration. Wagner et al. (2010) add the multi-disciplinary aspects of digital design. The multi-disciplinary approach found within the business discipline by Damij & Damij (2014) who relate the multi-disciplinary perspective on the business process management, including knowledge management and data modeling. Goodwin & Strang (2012) relate the multi-disciplinary to their socio-cultural meta-model in evaluating risk. Finally, the multi-disciplinary approach found in the technical discipline comprises Biffl et al. (2011) who discuss the risks in overlapping and missing competency in engineering roles, regarding multi-disciplinary as within the technical domain while interlinking engineering roles. In addition Chen et al. (2014) examining the knowledge bases in the interaction between multi-disciplinary computer systems.
In an aim to position the EA, and especially the Enterprise Architect, there is a certain need to understand the context of the architect’s work field. The Enterprise Architect’s work field is expected to be multi-facet and multi-disciplinary while the literature survey for this research reproduces vague support for this statement. Moreover, the absence of literature elaborating a multi-disciplinary approach to the field for IS/IT, business and the socio-technical context is considered as rare. The next section will explore the context of the business management, which the Enterprise Architect is expected to be in cooperation with.
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