Investigating the Antecedents and Benefits of SOA Implementation: A Multi-Case Study Approach

Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is an emerging IT strategy. It is an architectural style for building loosely coupled distributed systems that deliver application functionality as services. Currently there is little academic research published on SOA. As a result, we know little about what factors affect SOA implementation such that reported benefits can be achieved. To fill this gap, we study multiple cases to investigate factors key to successful SOA implementation. Our preliminary findings suggest that SOA requires extremely high levels of organization-IT alignment to achieve reported benefits. Other factors key to successful SOA implementations include SOA registries, governance, effective pilot projects, top management support, trust among business units, personnel training, and change management. A model is proposed as a basis for future SOA diffusion study; implications for both practice and research are discussed.