To improve IT project success, the IS architecture that managers need to understand is emergent – the result of implementing IT projects in organizations. Firms conduct planning sessions to create a vision of their desired architecture that we call designed architecture. This designed architecture serves to establish a common vision across the professional IT community. However, every project results in the creation of new dependencies or elimination of prior dependencies for example, between systems, databases and platforms. As a result of implementing these projects, companies create a gap between the designed architecture vision and the emergent architecture in use. This gap prevents companies from capturing the expected value from their IS systems. Studying these dependencies holds the key to understanding and managing the gap. Traditional approaches to IT architecture have been focused on identifying the components of architecture and the design rules that govern their conceptualization, creation and delivery. The dependences that exist between components are largely ignored. In this work, we focus on the dependencies and, in particular, how the dependencies between the components and organizational interdependencies co-evolve. We use research from social networks and modularity theory as a useful abstraction for architecture representation and analysis. Enterprise architecture papers: Partnerships between Software Firms: Is There Value from Complementarities? with Lucia Gao Design Architecture, Developer Networks, and Performance of Open Source Software Projects with Michelle Liu Managing Architecture Under Emergence: A Conceptual Model and Simulation with David Dreyfus The Co-Evolution of Design and User Requirements in Knowledge Management Systems: The Case of Patent Management Systems with Tony Briggs and Paul Carlile ECAR: A Repository for Storing, Retrieving and Analyzing Emergent Component Architecture with David Dreyfus Architecture and the search for control under emergence with David Dreyfus Process Coordination Requirements: Implications for the Design of Knowledge Management Systems with G. Shankar and George Wyner A network-based view of enterprise architecture with David Dreyfus and Per Gyllstrom Architecture in Design Science: The Case of Stacks with David Dreyfus Architectural control and emergent architecture: a network perspective, with David Dreyfus (an earlier version titled "Enterprise Architecture: A Social Network Perspective,” was published in HICSS 2006). Managerial Action in a Stacked Landscape with David Dreyfus Using Software Stacks to Explain Complementarities: The Case of Mergers and Acquisitions in the Software Industry, with Lucia Silva The Impact of Design Moves on Platform Adoption: The Case of Microsoft Windows OS, with Michelle Liu and Chi-Hyon Lee The Four-Domain Architecture: An approach to support enterprise architecture design , with Richard Gottlieb