ICT infrastructure for innovation: A case study of the enterprise service bus approach

Abstract

In this paper we investigate the relationship between ICT infrastructure and innovation. In recent years the concept of the enterprise service bus has been introduced as an ICT architecture that supports strong integration of distributed components and services, but at the same time allows for adding or subtracting business partners at short notice. What are the organizational issues and challenges of this approach? Building on a case study from Norway we investigated this topic in the context of innovation of ICT based services. Our findings were analyzed at three levels; the bus as technical infrastructure, the bus as innovation infrastructure and the bus as organizational structure. We find that the bus as technical infrastructure supports innovation within a business unit, while the bus as innovation infrastructure facilitates the innovation of new business services. Further, we propose that a shared topology of these three levels is important to support the overall innovation process. As illustrated in our case, this also raises new challenges for the innovative corporation.

Leading Digital Transformation: The Scandinavian Way

“…The main steps were: (i) Ground problem/question in reality up close and from afar Mr Aanby and the first researcher had co-researched the Norwegian case and copublished results [24]. Building on Aanby's experience in SAS, we wished to assess the digital transformation in SAS, with a particular focus on the role of the Scandinavian workplace model and Scandinavian leadership.…”

Integrating Cloud Computing Services Using Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)

“…ESB greatly improves the central service registry mechanism in SOA and provides a software infrastructure for SOA implementation in enterprise applications as well as system integration across organizational boundary. That is, ESB greatly enhances the usage of SOA with a virtual bus to connect many disparate systems and services together (Chappell, 2004;Schmidt et al, 2005;Menge, 2007;Bygstad & Aanby, 2010). In particular, ESB is message-based bus architecture which consists of a set of software components called service containers (Menge, 2007;Bygstad & Aanby, 2010).…”

“…That is, ESB greatly enhances the usage of SOA with a virtual bus to connect many disparate systems and services together (Chappell, 2004;Schmidt et al, 2005;Menge, 2007;Bygstad & Aanby, 2010). In particular, ESB is message-based bus architecture which consists of a set of software components called service containers (Menge, 2007;Bygstad & Aanby, 2010). Service containers are interconnected over a reliable and secure messaging channel.…”

The impact of information and communication technology on skilled labor and organization types

“…A shared topology among technical infrastructure, innovation infrastructure and organizational structure is important to support the overall innovation process (Bygstad and Aanby 2009).…”