Why would enterprise architects work together? - a multiple case study

In recent years, organizations are continuously confronted with the loss of market shares by competitors introducing new technologies and innovative business models. Instead of competing with these companies, organizations increasingly cooperate with competitors from the same industry. They are shifting from competition to cooperation to gain benefits by exchanging knowledge and identifying synergy potential. As cooperating organizations are usually connected regarding their processes and IT, the significance of inter-organizational enterprise architecture (EA) is increasing. However, often companies are not willing to share their internal EA knowledge and resources with others. This research is motivated by the lack of empirical studies on the collaboration between enterprise architects. Based on the result of 13 semi-structured interviews in two case studies, we present the motivation, aims, and benefits of enterprise architects in inter-organizational collaborations with others.