From 2001 to 2007 Arla Foods, one of the largest dairy companies in
the world has undergone a major Enterprise Architecture transformation
involving organizational and technological changes. While the changes have
been successful and the organization is enjoying a period of unprecedented
success, the change process has encountered ups and downs that are easily
forgotten in the post-rationalization process that characterizes successes.
Starting from the realization that current Enterprise Architecture (EA) literature
is quite scant regarding detailed accounts of successful maturity processes, this
article sets the stage to investigate in detail the case of EA transformation at
Arla Foods. The main goal with this article is to delineate a research design to
uncover the transformation process from three perspectives: Design thinking,
Institutional theory, and Sociomateriality.