The Service-Oriented Enterprise: Learn Enterprise Architecture and Its Viable Services

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to APress Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2023

T. GravesThe Service-Oriented Enterprisehttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-9189-4_3

3. Basics – A Matter of Metaphor

Tom Graves¹  

(1)

Tetradian Consulting, Eaglehawk, VIC, Australia

 

For at least a hundred years, the dominant metaphor of business has been that of “enterprise as a machine.” The science behind its notion of “scientific management” is essentially Newtonian, a clockwork universe following implacable, supposedly universal “laws of business.” And there’s no doubt that it did work well, for the business-owners at least; Ford’s assembly-lines were hailed as marvels of their age, as productivity leapt manyfold under the ever-vigilant eye of the time-and-motion ...