Introduction to the special issue on enterprise architecture management

In the last decades, the complexity of corporate information technology (IT) environments has been growing steadily, and keeping pace with an ever-changing business environment has become a constant challenge. These factors have combined to make architecture a key concern of information management today. There is now general acknowledgment that only continuous and holistic management of the Enterprise Architecture (EA) can ensure the sustainability, agility, and strategic alignment of corporate IT environments. Enterprise architecture has evolved as a discipline since the 1990s. Early work focused on architecture models, principles, and standards that comprise the content of the enterprise architecture. As companies have gained practical experience implementing EA concepts, they have become more concerned with enterprise architecture management (EAM) and its success factors. Despite a growing body of EA-related knowledge, different definitions of EAM coexist, ranging from a narrow focus on enterprise-wide IT management to a broader focus on organizational development and transformation of the entire firm.