Where enterprise architecture development fails a multiple case study of governmental organizations

Enterprise Architecture (EA) adoption by governmental organizations has been substantially increased not only to improve performance and efficiency, but as a prerequisite to E-Government implementation. Many efforts have been done to create frameworks and methodologies for government sector organizations to develop EA smoothly and flawlessly. Based on a survey in 2004, governmental organizations in Iran had been among the top ten countries in EA activities but since then it has faced with an on-going decline. Therefore, the goal of this study is to investigate the obstacles that governmental organizations have encountered in recent years during EA development. Employing multiple case study approach, the data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 9 governmental organizations in Iran. In total, 18 obstacles were identified. Moreover, a priority framework was created to determine the precedence in addressing these obstacles. In analogy to previous literature, five of the identified obstacles have not been mentioned in the earlier literature. This study is a great assist for both practitioners and researchers because of the essentials of digital capability in the success of businesses and EA being the central competence area in digital transformation.