Integration Services Today: A Qualitative Study -- Design and Preliminary Results

Integration is an ongoing topic in research as well as in practice. Although many academic discussions exist, the usage of academic approaches in practice remains unclear. The aim of this paper was to examine which integration methods discussed within academia are used in practice and how integration services are provided today. Up to now, no similar attempts are known in this field of research. This paper presents the research setting and first preliminary results of an qualitative empirical study conducted as expert interviews among 30 integration service providers (IntSP). Theoretical preliminary considerations as well as the research method are described in detail. The interviews took from one to three hours and resulted in 52 hours of audio data which was transcribed, extracted and condensed. The preliminary results and the conclusions drawn in this paper base on about fifty percent of the material which is already completely evaluated.