Business architecture for inter-organisational innovation networks: A case study comparison from South Africa and Germany

Abstract

The range of inter-organisational innovation networks existing in the global economy today show a wide variance in structure, purpose, location, lifespan and maturity. These differences between network instantiations highlight the need for deeper understanding of the operation of these networks in order to enable efforts to improve network performance. These efforts include strategic management routines for network leadership, as well as the development of appropriate support structures, e.g. information systems architectures. An important step towards a deeper understanding of inter-organisational innovation networks is to compare the business architectures of network case studies to identify similarities and differences in terms of scope and context, business concepts and underlying system logic. The Zachman framework for enterprise architecture provides an approach to structuring the business architecture of enterprises in a way that allows such comparisons to be drawn. This paper describes the business architecture of two contrasting network case studies from South Africa and Germany within the Zachman framework, and draws some conclusions based on the observed similarities and conclusions.