The Impact of EA-Driven Dynamic Capabilities, Innovativeness, and Structure on Organizational Benefits: A Variance and fsQCA Perspective

Enterprise Architecture (EA) allows firms to create value on the firm and operational levels. This paper argues that firms’ EA-driven dynamic capabilities lead to innovative value-creating actions and, ultimately, improve organizational benefits. Hence, we propose a theoretical model that explains how these dynamic capabilities enable the innovativeness of firms. Moreover, we explain the contingent role of an organic firm structure and its relation to firm innovativeness. Data within this study is collected from 299 CIOs and IT managers. This study uses a variance-based approach and a complementary fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to analyze the model’s hypothesized relationships. Our study outcomes demonstrate a positive relationship between EA-driven dynamic capabilities and firms’ innovativeness as well as between innovation and organizational benefits. Our post-hoc analyses using fsQCA reveal various circumstances in which organic firm structure and valuable, rare, inimitable, and non-substitutional (VRIN) firm resources are particularly relevant for firms to obtain high levels of firm innovativeness.