A Conceptual Model for Systems-of-Information Systems

The interoperability between multiple Information Systems (IS) have enabled the creation of functionalities that could not be offered by any IS individually. This phenomenon has raised the concept of Systems-of-Information Systems (SoIS). SoIS are dynamic alliances of independent and interoperable IS that share resources to fulfill a set of global common goals. Despite the emergence of studies on this type of complex system, there is a lack of a precise characterization of what exactly is a SoIS and what makes this class of systems different from other similar complex systems. The main contribution of this paper is the establishment of a conceptual model to support researchers and practitioners to recognize a SoIS. We adopted the developed model to show how real cases of SoIS from the environmental management and space domains could be recognized as such. The model also helped us to identify a set of IS that is not considered a SoIS in the financial domain. Results reveal that the proposed conceptual model (i) includes relevant concepts and relations to describe SoIS, (ii) comprehensively characterizes SoIS, and (iii) supports experts to correctly classify a complex system as a SoIS or not.