What Are Important Governance and Management Mechanisms to Achieve IT Flexibility in Service-Oriented Architectures (SOA)?: An Empirical Exploration

Recent research results and practitioner experience both posit that Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) governance is critical to successfully implement and utilize SOA. We investigate the impact of different SOA governance and management mechanisms (structures, processes, and employees) for leveraging SOA´s potential to increase an organization´s IT infrastructure flexibility. The results based on data from 73 SOA using organizations reveal 1) a negative impact of implementing new decision-making bodies on 2 dimensions of IT flexibility (IT modularity and integration) 2) a positive impact of the SOA management processes service management and service development on 2 dimensions of IT flexibility (modularity and integration of IT infrastructure) 3) a positive impact of business units collaboratively identifying jointly utilizable services on modularity 4) and a particularly strong impact of standards, and also of employee qualification, on all dimensions of IT infrastructure flexibility.