Success Factors of Application Integration: An Exploratory Analysis

The increased deployment of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) applications creates application integration challenges. However, very few articles focus on application integration success. That is why we first analyze these contributions and derive success factor candidates (SFCs). In addition, contributions dealing with problems and risks of application integration and related research fields are examined-as they allow for the derivation of further SFCs. In total twenty-six SFCs are collected. A factor analysis is conducted to examine interrelations between SFCs. It yields seven success factor groups, e.g., architecture management, IT/business alignment, or use of methods. In a second step, an exploratory analysis is conducted to examine the impact of these SFCs on various success indicators of application integration. These success indicators were defined beforehand by analyzing theories for information system (IS) success. As a result of the exploratory analysis, twenty-seven hypotheses are proposed. These hypotheses need to be corroborated in a future confirmatory study.

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