The Contribution of Enterprise Architecture to the Achievement of Organizational Goals: A Review of the Evidence

This paper reports the findings of a systematic review on the literature concerning the potential contribution of Enterprise Architecture (EA) to the achievement of various business goals. The review revealed the current state of the scientific and practitioner’s literature concerning the potential benefits of EA as describing 29 unique contexts within which EA has been found to deliver 100 unique benefits through 3 value-generative mechanisms. This review enhances the understanding of EA of both researchers and practitioners by providing valuable information on the potential benefits of EA and their relationships, their applicability (context), and the mechanisms that generate them. Additionally, this review is expected to enable practitioners to establish the business case for EA by means of scientifically grounded reasoning about how EA might contribute to the achievement of certain business goals.