Disentangling the Digitality of Startups from an Enterprise Architecture Perspective

In this paper, we pick up the recent discourse on “digital x” and advance the field of digital entrepreneurship by disentangling the digitality of startups from an enterprise architecture (EA) perspective. In doing so, we provide a taxonomy based on the development process of Nickerson et al. (2013) and Kundisch et al. (2022) to better distinguish between startups with a high and a low degree of digitality. Here, by drawing on architectural layers, related design objects, and their dependencies, we differentiate between two primary (i.e., distinctive) and three secondary (i.e., supportive) dimensions of digitality. Finally, we demonstrate the taxonomy’s applicability to real-world startups.