=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-3223/paper5
|storemode=property
|title=Enterprise Service Management between IT Organization and IT Architecture Thinking – A Clarifying Literature Review
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3223/paper5.pdf
|volume=Vol-3223
|authors=Daria Goscinska,Till Winkler
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/bir/GoscinskaW22
}}
==Enterprise Service Management between IT Organization and IT Architecture Thinking – A Clarifying Literature Review==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3223/paper5.pdf
Enterprise Service Management between IT Organization and
IT Architecture Thinking – A Clarifying Literature Review
Daria Goscinska 1, Till Winkler 1,2
1
University of Hagen, Germany
2
Copenhagen Business School, Denmark
Abstract
Given the dispersed nature of the term Enterprise Service Management (ESM) across different
research fields and the heterogeneous understanding of ESM even within single fields, the
purpose of this literature review is to sharpen concept clarity of ESM for future research. We
address the research question on how we can synthesize existing knowledge on ESM and
clarify the term. Our systematic literature review finds that ESM appears mainly in two
research fields: the customer and process-centric ESM related to the IT organization thinking
and system-centric ESM related to IT architecture thinking. Our contribution is a unifying
definition of ESM: ESM is an approach that aims at transforming and managing organizational
workflows as services, which can be used by internal or external customers to fulfill business
or IT requests. ESM is created as an interplay of an open yet interconnected enterprise
organization, a component-based architecture of services, and support of technology
independent standardization tools.
Keywords 1
Enterprise Service Management, IT Service Management, IT Organization, IT Architecture,
Structured Literature Review
1. Introduction
“A common language is an essential prerequisite for a community of scholars interested in the same
or similar phenomena to exchange ideas and build knowledge” is Suddaby’s plea for construct clarity
[35, p.352]. The phenomenon of Enterprise Service Management (ESM), however, misses this clarity.
The term ESM is just in the process of concept formation and not universally defined [10, 17, 29]. Some
view ESM as an extension of IT Service Management (ITSM) towards business processes, while others
use the term ESM in architecture frameworks such as System Wide Information Management (SWIM).
Yet, in most papers the distinction between ITSM and ESM is blurry, and the terms are used
synonymously [9,13, 43]. At the same time, the relevance of ESM is increasing due to the success of
IT solutions provided by a growing number of service management vendors such as ServiceNow [23,
25]. With the diversity of meanings around ESM across research fields, we want to contribute to concept
clarity, which should benefit the scientific and professional community in future ESM research.
The purpose of this literature review is to provide an overview of the current academic knowledge
by clarifying the ESM concept. We follow Suddaby’s [35] idea of construct clarity which consists of
four elements: a precise definition, contextual scope conditions, a semantic relationship with other
constructs, and logical consistency of the construct. We address the research question how we can
synthesize existing knowledge on ESM and clarify the term through a systematic literature review on
ESM. To the best of our knowledge, there has not been a literature review on ESM. A brief mention of
ESM can be found in the review by Pröhl and Zarnekow [32], who analyzed ITSM contributions in the
time from 2003 to 2018 and clustered them according to topics and popularity. One of the identified
topics was ESM with 18 papers, which showed that while empirical research on ESM has only recently
gained momentum, conceptually focused work on ESM has hardly been published (only 1 out of 18
BIR 2022 Workshops and Doctoral Consortium, 21st International Conference on Perspectives in Business Informatics Research (BIR 2022),
September 20-23, 2022, Rostock, Germany
EMAIL: daria.goscinska@fernuni-hagen.de (A. 1); till.winkler@fernuni-hagen.de (A. 2)
©️ 2020 Copyright for this paper by its authors.
Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
CEUR Workshop Proceedings (CEUR-WS.org)
44
articles). Pröhl and Zarnekow [32] conclude that ESM is a very current topic with increasing
contributions to be expected in near future.
Our literature review reveals that the term ESM has mainly been used in two schools of thought in
Information Systems (IS): the customer and process-centric ESM related to IT organization thinking,
and the system-centric ESM related to IT architecture thinking. Our contribution is that we provide a
unifying definition of ESM, which is applicable across research fields. We argue that our definition fits
the service science logic, where services are repeatable business activities in a three-layered service-
oriented organization [3]. In the remainder of this paper, we first explain the literature review approach,
followed by the findings section, which is subdivided into a general trends part and a detailed concept
characteristics part. We conclude with a discussion and an outlook.
2. Research Approach
Literature reviews are essential in building theoretical foundations for the whole discipline as well
as defining further research fields [6, 39]. This literature review follows the recommendations by
Bandara [2], Webster and Watson [39] and Paré et al. [31], supported by insights from vom Brocke et
al. [6] and Levy and Ellis [26]. As this paper analyses an under-researched term (ESM), it can be
classified as tackling “an emerging issue that would benefit from exposure to potential theoretical
foundations” [39, p. xiv]. Hence, this paper is categorized as a descriptive literature review type, which
seeks to establish interpretable patterns within the current body of knowledge [31]. The approach in
this review is inductive, with the outcome being a categorization of the research derived from the
literature analysis itself (Table 3) and a unifying definition.
2.1. Scope and search
The literature search was conducted between November 2021 and January 2022. The single search
phrase used was “Enterprise Service Management”, which was put in quotation marks to find exact
matches. Based on listings by Levy and Ellis [26] and Bandara [2], we searched in 8 scientific databases:
ABI/INFORM, ACM Digital Library, AISeL, EBSCOhost, IEEE, ProQuest, Web of Science and Wiley
Online Library. As the first search showed a limited number of hits, we decided to expand our search
in two ways. First, we enlarged the source pool by searching the same phrase via the search engine
Google Scholar, which is particularly recommended to research concepts in a broader context beyond
a single field [2]. Second, we included other document types than peer-reviewed journal articles or
conference papers such as non-peer-reviewed conference papers, specialized books or chapters,
analytical reports, and manuals, which is a legitimate strategy to complement academic knowledge [2].
The search process was organized in four phases (see Figure 1). The 1st phase focused on journal
articles, conference papers and specialized books in academic databases only. In the 2nd phase we used
the search engine Google Scholar and expanded the document types to also include practitioner’s
research reports and manuals. In the 3rd phase a backward and forward search was conducted. Lastly,
in the 4th phase we scanned documents from the previous phases and added a number of peripherally
related papers, where ESM was only mentioned as a sidenote. To determine which documents to include
in the literature review and in which phase, a scanning of the paper’s title, abstract, and a text keyword
search were conducted.
Figure 1: Literature search process divided in four phases [author’s illustration]
45
The criteria for inclusion or exclusion (Table 1) were based on language, source, and data type
considerations. Although the range of formats was quite broad, remaining documents as listed in the
exclusion list were out of scope due to their limited verifiable quality. With each search phase, the
relevancy of findings diminished, converging in the 4th phase, where documents with even a one-time
mention of the phrase “Enterprise Service Management” were included. We are thus confident that
additional papers would not have added considerable value and consider the review as saturated [6].
Table 1
Inclusion and exclusion criteria
Inclusion criteria Exclusion criteria
Language English or German Other languages than English or German
Sources as in Figure 1 Documents that did not once contain the keyword in the whole text
Data types as in Figure 1 Data formats: dissertations, study work, technical reports, project deliverables,
blog posts, news article
Deals with ESM Duplicates
2.2. Literature search results
With the above search criteria, 63 papers were found in total (Table 2). Their publication dates range
from 1999 to 2021. The vast majority of papers stem from Google Scholar (39), followed equally by
academic databases (12) and online findings (12). The hits per phase were as follows: 1st phase (7), 2nd
phase (20), 3rd phase (10), and 4th phase (26). In terms of the type of collected material, the majority
were conference papers (25) and journal articles (19), followed by specialized books or chapters (13)
and manuals (3) as well as research reports (3). Low numbers of keyword-based hits in academic
databases and higher numbers of hits in Google Scholar indicate that the ESM topic has not yet fully
reached the scientific domain. The few hits in the 1st phase show that most high quality IS journals have
not been discussing ESM, so far. Since one third of the document types were specialized books, research
reports, or manuals, and many authors had company affiliations, the ESM topic seems to be driven by
practice. We classified around 30% of documents as focusing mainly on ESM, in all other papers (70%)
it was discussed either briefly or mentioned on a side note.
To analyze the used methodologies, we followed Iden and Eikebrokk’s [20] approach, which was
based on Orlikowski and Baroundi’s (1991) categorization scheme. Two main groups, each with several
sub-groups, were formulated and determined per paper: Conceptual (sub-groups: concepts, models,
frameworks, literature reviews) and empirical (sub-groups: survey, interviews, case studies,
experiments, and multi-methods). Over 50% of findings were categorized as empirical case studies
(mainly qualitative, 5 quantitative). In general, 45 papers were empirical while 18 were conceptual in
nature. The latter included only qualitative work, except for one multi-method literature review. Table
2 summarizes the literature search results.
Table 2
Literature search results
Database 1st phase 2nd phase 3rd phase 4th phase Total included Overall duplicates
ABI/INFORM 0/0 ~ ~ ~ 0 (0)
ACM Digital 1/2 ~ ~ ~ 1 (1)
AISeL 0/4 ~ ~ ~ 0 (0)
EBSCOhost 1/1 ~ ~ ~ 1 (0)
IEEE 2/5 ~ ~ 1/5 1 (3)
ProQuest 4/17 ~ ~ 1/17 3 (3)
Web of Science 3/6 ~ ~ 1/6 2 (4)
Wiley Library 1/11 ~ ~ 3/11 4 (4)
Google Scholar ~ 26/397 ~ 22/397 39 (9)
online ~ ~ 10 2 12 ~
Total included 7 20 10 26 63 (24)
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3. Findings
The clustering of research topics into emergent research fields was conducted after reviewing the
focus of the paper and the frameworks used to embed ESM. With our inductive approach we merged
the categories and sub-categories until no further thematical compression was feasible. Finally, three
research fields emerged: ESM related to IT architecture thinking with overall 33 papers assigned to it,
ESM related to IT organization thinking with 22 papers as well as 8 papers on ESM related to
miscellaneous fields containing diverse perspectives not related to the two themes above, such as
software engineering, marketing, or cloud computing.
3.1. Trends across a timeline
A trend becomes visible when cross tabulating the publication date with the field clustering of IT
architecture, IT organization and miscellaneous (Figure 2). We observe that starting 2004, ESM was a
reoccurring topic in the IT architecture field, however, after 2015 it started declining to the degree of
no new publications after 2019. In the IT organization field, the timeline trend is reversed. While 2013-
2015 only single papers were published, a rapid increase occurred between 2016 and 2021, with a peak
of 6 publications in 2019. It is likely that in near future, the ESM topic will be mainly discussed through
IT organization thinking. One possible explanation of the increased popularity of ESM as ITSM
extension in recent years is the stronger publicity from the practitioner’s community. According to
Atlassian [1], “ESM […] was largely coined by leading analyst firm Forrester”, which started to use
this term since 2017 [14]. From this year on the publications in IT organization field boomed. At the
same time, the relevance of ESM in IT organization field is rising due to the expanded toolset offering
by a growing number of service providers [23, 25]. The miscellaneous field shows no clear trend, with
single publications across a broad timespan between 1999 and 2019.
Figure 2: Trend of ESM publications across timeline [author’s illustration]
In sum, to address the first part of the research question we conclude that the existing knowledge on
ESM is present mainly in two fields, IT architecture or IT organization thinking. This gives the term
ESM a context and framework embedment, which we will analyze deeper in the next section. We have
further found a timeline trend visible within the fields, and we can expect future research on ESM to be
embedded rather in the IT organization field.
3.2. Characteristics of ESM per research field
In this section, we summarize the ESM knowledge per research field by presenting the ESM
characteristics in IT architecture and IT organization thinking. First, we provide a deeper understanding
of the definition of ESM and of enterprise services. Next, we describe ESM along structural, design,
and technological attributes, which emerged from the literature review. The result is a comparison of
ESM thinking per field along these characteristics (Table 3), which helps establish concept clarity by
categorization and differentiation. Note, that for this detailed analysis, we considered papers only from
1st, 2nd, and 3rd search phase, as in the 4th phase descriptive elements of ESM were missing. This section
is divided into five sub-sections dealing with the five characteristics of ESM per research field.
47
3.2.1. Definition of ESM
This sub-section describes how ESM is understood per research field, by showing common
definition denominators and examples, including the main frameworks referring to ESM in IT
architecture thinking.
IT organization thinking. The basis of the definition in IT organization thinking is that ESM is a
strategic approach derived from ITSM [16, 24, 33]. As an extension of ITSM, ESM applies its best
practices, technologies, and processes towards non-IT areas of the organization [4, 10, 29]. When
specifying ITSM, almost all authors reference the de-facto standard ITIL, few mention other
frameworks like COBIT, Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) or ISO 2000/9000 [12, 15, 22]. Two
authors suggest that ESM could also be defined broader, i.e., equivalent to an intra-organizational
digital transformation or digitalization of process workflows [12, 33]. Use cases for ESM are found in
following business areas: Human Resources (HR), Workplace, Procurement, Finance and Controlling,
Facility Management and Maintenance, Fleet Management, Supplier Management or Customer Service
[4, 18, 22].
The overarching goal of ESM is to deliver customer satisfaction, increase process efficiency and
service quality [13, 24, 29]. This includes three activities in particular: simplification, standardization,
and automation [10, 12]. A basis for ESM is to view the employee as a customer. The employee-
customer expectations of comfort, quality, and user-friendliness from personal online experience (e-
commerce or e-banking services) are transferred to the work environment [18, 25, 33].
IT architecture thinking. In the IT architecture field, ESM manages all issues related to an end-to-
end service lifecycle. This covers the service from its creation and request update to the deployment,
usage, and retirement [19]. “It includes: service exception, fault monitoring and reporting, service
performance monitoring and reporting, SLA [Service Level Agreement] compliance and metrics
collection monitoring, as well as service policy performance monitoring and metrics monitoring, etc.”
[42, p.2]. Chang [7] adds regulations and governance functionalities to the list of activities. Two other
authors emphasize the connection between ESM and Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), inasmuch
as ESM is the foundation for SOA runtime governance [41] and that it is a necessary element for service
quality in an enterprise [36]. In IT architecture, ESM is strongly determined by established frameworks
Network-Centric Enterprise Services (NCES) and SWIM, which shall be briefly described in the
following:
The NCES (Network-Centric Enterprise Services) framework follows guiding principles written
down in the US Department of Defense Architecture Framework (DoDAF) [7]. Within NCES, ESM is
a set of system management functionalities to warrant end-to-end service quality [7]. An example of
network centric environments is warfare, where defense systems interact between the control center,
ground support and the weapon system itself [28]. SWIM (System Wide Information Management) is
a framework facilitating information sharing between aeronautical systems. Within SWIM, the ESM
capability, as a service governance capability, enables active and passive management of services [27].
ESM fulfills five core functions for SWIM services: asset, configuration, event & performance, policy
management as well as service desk support [5, 21]. A classic example of SWIM usage are flight
operations, where data is shared real-time on flight flows, aeronautical details, meteorological data, and
controller-pilot exchange [42].
In sum, in both fields ESM’s goal is the improvement of service quality and process efficiency. To
achieve the goal, the components of an organization are defined as services. Both follow the idea of
workflows, either as process steps or as a lifecycle management. However, a main difference lies with
the service orientation. While in IT organization thinking, the understanding of ESM is strongly
customer-centric with a focus on employee-customers and internal business processes, in IT
architecture the view is rather system-centric, aiming at the operational management of system services.
3.2.2. Service characteristics of ESM
This sub-section describes how the term service or enterprise services is understood in ESM context
per research field, including exemplary use cases.
48
IT organization thinking. In most papers an enterprise service is viewed as a business request [16,
17, 22]. Exemplary, among core ESM services in public administration are requests like mail
processing, ordering office supplies or notifying about a defect [10]. Others define enterprise services
either rather similar to IT services [9] or more general as services which can be requested from a
corporate service catalogue [34]. Enterprise services are exchanged between companies, customers, and
suppliers [37], therefore, users of the services can be likewise internal or external customers [13, 33,
34].
At their core, ESM flows are ultimately request fulfillments. “The day-to-day work of many
employees in an organization can be seen through the lenses of receiving requests from internal or
external customers and going through the motions of fulfilling them” [23, p.89]. ESM benefits business
areas with a high volume of demands with similar patterns [33]. These activities include requests for
help, for information or change, and overall reflect established ITSM operations processes [29]. A good
use case to apply ESM is the repetitive workflow of employee onboarding. HR provides employee data
and issues IDs, controlling saves account and tax information, IT sets up the digital workplace (E-Mail,
software), a maintenance team provides a physical workplace (desk, chair) while facility management
gives out building access cards [17].
IT architecture thinking. On a high level, service is the application of operant resources for the
benefit of another actor [15]. Or, in SOA concept terms, service is viewed as operational functions of a
software system to fulfill business objectives [27]. From a software architecture perspective, services
should be independent but loosely coupled and reusable [27]. Enterprise services can take the form of
business or IT services [19]. Both types are seen as decompositions of enterprise activities with defined
offerings, standard interfaces and flexible modularity [19, 41]. Huang et al. [19] depicts enterprise
services with the example of a business transaction workflow, in which all intermediate activities are
implemented as services. To conduct business transactions, e.g., like sending a purchase order from the
trading partner to the internal backend system, a workflow is created, causing different services to be
executed by internal and external parties. ESM’s role is to manage, monitor and if needed problem-
solve such end-to-end service workflows.
In sum, the understanding of enterprise services is similar in the two research fields due to its broad
definition. Enterprise services could be either business or IT related and directed towards either internal
or external customers. However, in the IT organization thinking the services resemble a business
requests fulfilment while in IT architecture thinking they are more software functions for business
objectives.
3.2.3. Structural characteristics of ESM
Structural characteristics refer to the understanding of how ESM is structured or set up in
organizations per research field, including its challenges and facilitators.
IT organization thinking. Structurally, the main objective of ESM is to provide an end-to-end service
provisioning [33]. An organization’s setup defines each “functional area of an organization that
provides internal services […] as a service domain” [17, p.6]. Another structural characteristic is a
proper communication channel. Many authors [10, 12, 29] call for a single point of contact for customer
inquiries, an enterprise service point. Beyond this point, it is valid to have multiple functional units in
the backend, per each service area [24, 30]. The highest form of ESM communication channel, and
simultaneously a strong ESM enabler is a central self-service desk [17, 30]. One obstacle for successful
internal service delivery is the silos mentality within an organization [33, 37]. ESM can act as an
approach for organizational transformation, which requires proper Change Management for cultural
change [33]. Acceptance for change must be created among staff, management and even external
suppliers for IT outsourcing [18, 33, 37].
IT architecture thinking. In IT architecture thinking, the structure of an enterprise is determined by
its design characteristics. Huang et al. [19] refers to the term Service Oriented Enterprise. From a system
perspective it is a model for architecting business process-driven enterprises. From a business
perspective, the term emphasizes the componentization of business functions into services. This
component-service idea is the basic structure for ESM organizations, however, it bears its own
challenges by creating an environment with numerous services and heterogeneous ownerships [41]. In
49
such diverse environments, interrelationships between the system components or capabilities are crucial
[15, 36].
In sum, in both fields the structural characteristic of ESM is an open, inclusive but interconnected
environment. This is needed to achieve a strong service-orientation of the enterprise. In IT organization
thinking the emphasis is however more on soft skills like communication means and change
management, while IT architecture’s structural characteristics are determined by its system architecture.
3.2.4. Design characteristics of ESM
Design characteristics refer to the understanding of how ESM is implemented or architected in
organizations per research field, including its necessary and supportive system elements.
IT organization thinking. Overall, the purpose of a system design is to describe the various functional
elements of an organization and their interdependencies [9, 12]. Zhang [43] uses an attribute analysis
model to determine the appropriate system modules for building ESM. Interfaces and integration should
be considered on a processual level, as the integration of the service desk into the process landscape
[10], as well as on the application level, connecting software into the system [13]. What remains
important is that services are designed standardized and modular [37], so that problematic customizing
of software is avoided [29]. Some design considerations involve particular providers, for example
Platform as a Service (PaaS) solutions or the ServiceNow vendor [4, 23].
IT architecture thinking. The predominant concept for designing ESM-related environments is SOA,
whose basic idea is the partitioning of functionality into reusable and independent yet loosely coupled
services [5, 36]. Some authors underline the importance of horizontal and vertical interoperability of
enterprise systems comprised of IT artifacts, people, and business practices [7, 19]. For ESM in
particular, Chen et al. [8] developed a four-layer architecture. ESM has a single portal frontend (layer
4), behind which lies the service management layer with all the service functions (layer 3). The
information flows to the data integration layer (layer 2) which lastly connects to the client infrastructure
(layer 1) [8]. Each layer itself is broken down into components, linkages, sub-components and
relationships.
In sum, in both research fields ESM is embedded in an architecture characterized by a modular
design of the enterprise services. The enterprise functionality is partitioned into components which are
independent but simultaneously integrated with each other. In IT organization thinking, it further
includes modularity of the organizational setup. While in the IT architecture thinking the design basis
is strongly laid by existing frameworks which reference ESM, in IT organization thinking the design
ideas are not formed into a wholesome framework, yet.
3.2.5. Technology characteristics of ESM
Technological characteristics refer to the understanding of how various technologies or tools
facilitate the implementation of ESM per research field, including the relation between IT and business
functions.
IT organization thinking. The IT function is seen as the driver and enabler of an ESM
implementation mainly because digitalization and service desk setup often fall under its responsibilities
[17, 25]. Moreover, the IT department typically holds the knowledge on service-processes and service
culture, through a long-standing experience with ITSM and affiliated frameworks [12, 22, 29]. ESM is
about more than just usage of a common ITSM tool, but a proper toolset can influence ESM’s success
[33]. Many software or service providers have expanded their ITSM offering to include ESM tools and
therefore facilitate the transition [23, 25]. Beside the tools, technological advances like artificial
intelligence (AI), automation, data analytics or machine learning (ML) could improve the
organization’s ESM efforts [30, 43]. Example use cases of ML include an automated ticket routing and
question-answer chat bots [13].
IT architecture thinking. Regarding technological considerations, the main takeaway from an IT
architecture thinking standpoint is that any proposed enterprise architecture is designed independent
from technology and tool choices. Yet, the technological decisions influence the architectural transition,
therefore it is recommended to choose open standard technologies or commercial tools [36, 41].
50
Wisnosky et al. [41] conducted a market research on SOA ESM vendors among 30 organizations,
concluding that there are several commercial tools on the market which offer strong toolsets for
integrated service management, some even featuring business management aspects [41]. The multiple
providers and offerings available for service management require an individual assessment of feasibility
in the organization [8,15].
In sum, in both research fields technological considerations, including tools which support and
standardize service management, could facilitate the implementation or development of ESM.
However, ESM is technology agnostic in that it does not require any specific tools to function. In IT
organization thinking, the knowledge of the IT department is emphasized, while in IT architecture
thinking the focus is on open standard technologies. Table 3 summarizes the key points on ESM
between IT organization and IT architecture thinking across the five characteristics along with practical
examples and existing reference frameworks.
Table 3
Main characteristics of ESM in IT organization and IT architecture thinking
Enterprise Service Management
Characteristics IT organization thinking IT architecture thinking
Definition of ESM ▪ ESM is based on ITSM ▪ ESM as management of an end-to-end service
[see 3.2.1] ▪ ESM as a strategic approach for organizational lifecycle
business processes ▪ ESM is system-centric
▪ ESM is customer & process-centric ▪ ESM is connected to SOA as it ensures its service
▪ Goal is efficiency quality
Understanding of ▪ Services as business requests ▪ Services as resources or functions of a SOA system
enterprise services ▪ Internal workflows resemble request fulfillment ▪ Services can be business- or IT-related
[see 3.2.2]
Organizational ▪ Open and inclusive structure without silos ▪ Service Oriented Enterprise with business
structure ▪ Single point of contact for customers functions as services
[see 3.2.3] ▪ ESM used for organizational transformation or ▪ Strong interdependence within service-based
change workflows
Architectural design ▪ Modularity of services (standardization instead of ▪ Design is based on SOA principles (partitioning of
[see 3.2.4] customization) functionality into reusable and independent
▪ Design of processes and interfaces to support components)
structural setup ▪ System interoperability between services
Technology and tools ▪ IT as driver and enabler of ESM change ▪ Technology independent enterprise architecture
[see 3.2.5] ▪ Expanded ITSM-tools are offerings which facilitate and ESM design
ESM ▪ Usable open standards technologies and
▪ Useful technological advances like ML or AI commercial tools available for service
management
Examples of ESM ▪ Business areas for ESM: HR, Procurement, ▪ Use of frameworks with ESM for global aviation
[see 3.2.2] Controlling, Fleet or Facility Management management or defense and weapon systems
▪ Workflow examples: HR onboarding follows a ▪ ESM monitors and manages service workflows like
repetitive set of activities business transactions
▪ Use of technology: automated ticketing routing, ▪ Chen’s four-layered ESM architecture
Q&A algorithm
Frameworks ▪ Universally: ITIL ▪ SWIM
[see 3.2.1] ▪ Other frameworks: COBIT, MOF ▪ NCES
▪ Standards: ISO 9000/9001, ISO/IEC 20000 ▪ SOA
▪ DoDAF
4. Discussion and Outlook
Our analysis of ESM across the two main research fields has confirmed our anticipation that the
term ESM is blurry. This blurriness on the one hand leads to the application of the term ESM in many
different discussions, yet it also results in the lack of a common understanding in the existing literature.
According to Suddaby, a lack of construct clarity is among the most common reasons to reject presented
research [35]. We tried to synthesize existing knowledge on ESM to strengthen concept clarity of the
term ESM.
51
The main characteristics of ESM in both the IT organization and IT architecture thinking shed light
on five important aspects of concept clarity. To recall, the four elements contributing to construct clarity
are a precise definition, contextual scope conditions, a semantic relationship with other constructs and
logical consistency of the construct [35]. First, we discovered that there is no universal definition of
ESM, but at least a dual, field-specific understanding. Additionally, in the IT organization thinking we
observe a narrow and broad ESM meaning. However, for concept clarity purposes it cannot be
recommended to use ESM as equivalent to digital transformation (the broad definition), since this term
already exists and has its own conceptual meaning.
Second, our research contribution should go further than providing a field-specific ESM
understanding. Based on our review of the structural, design and technological characteristics of the
concept, we propose the following definition as a common ground for ESM across research fields: ESM
is an approach which aims at transforming and managing organizational workflows as services, which
can be used by internal or external customers to fulfill business or IT requests. ESM is created as an
interplay of an open yet interconnected enterprise organization (service-orientation), a component-
based architecture of services (modularization) and support of technology independent standardization
tools (technology agnosticism). This definition fits well in the overall service science logic, where a
service-oriented organization is set up of three layers which support business execution—business
processes (incl. ITIL elements), a mid-level architecture layer (including as a service offerings) and the
infrastructure layer (including SOA elements) [3].
Third, we argue that our differentiation per research field helps sharpen the definition specifics of
ESM and provides context conditions in which the concept meanings are created (Table 3). For instance,
in the IT organization thinking, ESM is stronger customer-oriented and process-centric while in the IT
architecture thinking it is more system-centric. The transparency of this context conditions should
support researchers to determine their field-specific ESM understanding.
Fourth, our literature review revealed the relationships between ESM and other concepts. Here, we
see also a difference per field, on the one hand a link between ESM and ITSM, ITIL and business
request fulfillment (IT organization thinking), on the other hand a linkage between ESM and SOA,
SWIM and NCES (IT architecture thinking). Fifth and last, we believe ESM as a concept demonstrates
logical coherence as its various attributes and relationships are adequately incorporated into it.
However, since the coherence assessment is rather intuitive and in large part gained by embedding the
construct into theory [35], this part of construct clarity evaluation must be conducted on the individual
level of each research paper.
With our literature review, we aim to contribute to the evolution of both the IT organization and IT
architecture fields by transforming ESM towards a recognized academic concept and providing more
clarity and context transparency for ESM. Yet, we acknowledge that there have been critical voices on
ESM. It was called a ‘buzzword’ or ‘marketing hype’ pushed by software vendors to increase their
service management platform sales [23, 29]. This view was strengthened considering that the concept
has been confused with other existing concepts like ITSM [9, 13]. Moreover, during our research we
found alternative labels of ESM in literature, like ‘Business Service Management’ or ‘Beyond IT’ [12,
17]. However, Mitrakis [29] argues that even though the concept names may vary or be new, the whole
idea behind ESM has been used in practice for years and is useful because ESM value can be measured
by more efficient and effective services.
We see several opportunities for further research on ESM. A next step towards improved
conceptualization of ESM should be the development of a scientifically grounded ESM framework. To
further develop ESM from a concept with a unified definition towards a recognized research construct,
the ESM concept requires operationalization and measurement metrics. An ESM measurement
instrument could allow for more in-depth empirical case studies. The high number of review papers
affiliated with the 4th search phase (in which ESM was only mentioned as a sidenote) shows that many
papers reference ESM as part of other frameworks (e.g., SWIM, NCES), but rarely break it down to its
unique components. In a future work, we therefore aim to empirically develop and test a measurable
ESM construct in an implementation context.
Lastly, ESM could benefit from theorization through appropriate lenses. We regard two theories as
particularly applicable for ESM. First, the service-dominant logic (S-DL) [38] could shed light on the
interaction between IT and business departments in an ESM-adapted organization. Based on 11
foundational premises, the S-DL framework explains that the basis of all exchange is service (not
52
goods), and value is always co-created with the beneficiary [38]. The value in internal IT service
relationships is IS effectiveness, including business satisfaction or service quality [40]. In S-DL,
knowledge is an operant resource used for value co-creation, and in the ESM case the IT department is
seen as a knowledge driver for ESM transformation [17, 25]. S-DL could deliver valuable insights
analyzing how ESM is created in a value co-creation process between the IT and business departments.
Second, an institutional isomorphism lens could identify and classify the motivations behind ESM
adoption. Institutional isomorphism refers to an imitation process in which an organization or a
department start to resemble other units in the same conditional environment [11]. Isomorphism can
take three forms: coercive isomorphism (pressure from government policies, customers, IT vendors);
mimetic pressure (modelling innovation drivers or industry leaders); normative isomorphism (imitation
from trainings, certifications, occupational groups) [11, 20]. For ESM, coercive pressure could stem
from employee-customers who expect the same service satisfaction in their business environment as in
their private environment. Moreover, 20% of large companies get inspired by customers, competitors,
or their service providers when it comes to service process design or improvement [22]. In the IT
architecture field, the proliferation of established frameworks (NCES, SWIM) might be caused by
coercive pressure from governments or international aviation organizations. Future research on
institutional isomorphism in ESM could explain why and from whom organizations imitate ESM. Those
insights could in turn reveal patterns in ESM adaptation methods and principles.
The following limitations of this research merit consideration. First, the selection criteria generated
a particular set of review findings. Second, the inclusion of non-peer-reviewed literature may have
created biases due to the authors’ affiliations with particular companies. Acknowledging the limitations
of this research, future authors may consider modified search parameters or alternative focal
perspectives.
5. Conclusion
In this systematic literature review, we addressed the missing concept clarity of Enterprise Service
Management (ESM). We first determined that the phenomenon occurs in two main research fields: IT
organization and IT architecture. We further identified a timeline trend, with IT architecture-based ESM
references being in decline, while the IT organization-grounded ESM term is starting to trend. This
suggests a shift in ESM meaning. Furthermore, we provided an in-depth analysis of the main
characteristics of ESM in the two main research fields (Table 3). This summary of knowledge lays the
foundation for a clearer concept definition of ESM and demarcation against other phenomena such as
ITSM or digital transformation. Finally, based on the findings we proposed a unifying cross-field
definition of ESM. We tried to rectify the arguments of concept blurriness by offering a common ESM
definition and characteristics set, with the aim to transform ESM towards a recognized scientific
concept with possible theoretical lenses. We hope that this paper contributes to sharing existing ESM
knowledge across fields and thereby stimulates increased future academic research on ESM.
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