Effects of Service-Oriented Architectures on Competitive Advantage

Despite a rapid growth in service-oriented architecture (SOA)-related research during the past decade, investigations into management-oriented questions associated with business strategies remain limited. While considering, at the same time, that senior managers developed a negative attitude towards the power of information and communication technology (IT) to affect organizational performance, this book focuses on how SOAs impact on competitive advantage. A simplified paradigm model of competitive advantage for SOAs has been developed based on an examination of existing literature. This model suggests that costs and revenues are indirectly affected by SOA facilitated IT flexibility. To test and verify the relationships among model-inherent constructs (i.e. proposition), grounded theory as the data analysis technique has been applied to primary data collected from the case Västerĺs City and literature-based secondary data. The analysis should help to provide insights into the interaction between SOAs and competitive advantage, and should especially prove of interest and value to researchers, (senior) managers and students in (IT) Management fields.