Mastering the Social IT/Business Alignment Challenge

The crucial role of IT/business alignment for business value of IT has been investigated for more than two decades. While both the intellectual and the social dimension of alignment received considerable attention at strategic level, only few studies have provided insights into alignment at non-strategic levels. With the intellectual dimension being quite well understood, this work focuses particularly on the social dimension of alignment, addressing aspects like shared understanding, common language, shared domain knowledge, and interaction quality between business and IT. Furthermore, there is a lack of research on how to achieve and maintain social alignment, making it difficult to develop guidelines for practice in this important area. This paper presents a multi-level construct for social alignment and adopts an IT governance perspective in order to identify specific practices and investigate their impact on social alignment. Using a qualitative approach by conducting a series of case studies, this research aims to contribute to our understanding of key IT/business alignment antecedents (or managerial actions) and how they influence social alignment

Assessing IT-business alignment in service-oriented Enterprises

Nowadays, more and more businesses transform into service-oriented enterprises in order to sustain their competitive advantage. To ensure that the underlying information technology (IT) can best support the transformation, we aim to develop an IT-business alignment framework to assess the quality of alignment in the context of service-oriented enterprises. Based upon the existing literature, we propose three components of IT-business alignment: strategic alignment, operational alignment, and social alignment. We study their various contributions to the performance of service-oriented IT projects, together with the interactions with service integration level.Our data were collected from Web questionnaires. The total dataset is derived from 300 selected companies in an on-line technology management forum. Among the returned questionnaires, 104 were found to be complete and usable; this represented a response rate of 34 percent.A Partial Least Squares (PLS) analysis is conducted and derives the following three research findings: (1) IT-business alignment plays a significant role in improving the performance of service-oriented IT; (2) the service integration level is an important performance moderator for strategic and operational alignment; (3) the service integration level is an important contributor to social alignment. Available at: https://aisel.aisnet.org/pajais/vol3/iss1/3

Introduction to IT/business alignment, planning, execution and governance

This chapter contains: An overview and execution summary of the key IT/business alignment, planning, execution, governance issues, constraints and opportunities and processes Discussion of the roles of the Board, and responsibilities of executive management and the CIO A review of the value propositions for IT governance An overview of IT demand management, decision rights, Balanced Scorecard metrics and how much governance is required Identifying the steps in making IT governance real Discussion of an assessment technique to determine the current level of IT governance maturity in an organization, and illustration of a blueprint for an ideal future target state of IT governanc

IT-Business Alignment: What We Know That We Still Don\u27t Know

A review of IT trade publications and MIS research literature on IT-business alignment confirms the fact that, as a top concern for CEO’s and CIO’s, problems associated with a lack of an optimal level of alignment between business and IT functions within organizations remain as a continuing challenge for IT and organizational management. In attempts to explicate the IT-business alignment construct, researchers have formulated definitions of the construct, and they have proposed frameworks and models. Research studies on alignment have identified potential organizational impacts of alignment and have proposed prescriptive measures for achieving a higher degree of IT-business alignment in organizations. Given this body of research, an identification of key issues yet to be fully addressed by the existing research would guide additional research on IT-business alignment. Based on the results of a literature review, this paper provides a characterization of the research findings to date and proposes topics for additional research intended to extend the knowledge on IT-business alignment

Implementation of IT-Business Alignment Model in the SMEs sector

The development of enterprises depends on the effective use of IT and e-business solutions. It is tied to the skillful investment, based on the long-haul and strategic decisions adapted from the BITA (Business IT Alignment) models. However, it appears that the workshop that supports professionally the BSC(IT) project work, in practice, is so complex and laborious, that it is destined principally for the large enterprises. This article, based on actual reports, depicts a certain distance between the companies. That distance, when left to itself, will eventually make the development of the small and medium-sized enterprises impossible

STRATEGIC IT-BUSINESS ALIGNMENT AS MANAGERS’ EXPLORATIVE AND EXPLOITATIVE STRATEGIES

It has been argued by many that firms in a dynamic environment are challenged to both explore new possibilities to survive in a changing business environment, and to exploit old certainties to secure efficiency benefits. Indeed, as the basic problem confronting an organization is to engage in sufficient exploitation to ensure its current viability and, at the same time, to devote enough energy to exploration to ensure its future viability. Besides managers and academics have recently become more aware of the need to understand how firms could manage exploration and exploitation. This research aims to investigate the literature within the concept of organizational learning orientations. This is done by viewing the definitions and distinctions of exploration and exploitation, how to manage the tension between the two strategies, how management could be organized to deal with exploration and exploitation at the managerial level, and finally ‘exploring’ the relationships between exploration and exploitation with performance. An early study conducted by Venkatraman (1989) described the concept of fit from six measurement perspectives: moderation, mediation, matching, gestalt, covariation, and profile deviation. However, the extant literature in MIS and management often uses the Strategic Alignment Model (SAM) of Henderson and Venkatraman (1993) to explain the ways that firms achieve alignment. Also, Papp (1995) proposed several perspectives for examining the business and IT strategies and infrastructures to determine if they work in harmony or in opposition

Irish CIOs’ Influence on Technology Innovation and IT-Business Alignment

Technology is the driving force behind many of today’s new products, services, and cost-cutting measures. However, there are gaps in our understanding about how technological innovation is fostered and nurtured in organizations. Part of the answer is to examine how Chief Information Officers (CIOs) exercise influence regarding technological innovation in organizations. This is particularly important since the CIO is the head of technology in organizations, an important source of technological innovation. This article draws on an established executive influence framework to demonstrate how Irish CIOs are able to solidify Information Technology’s (IT’s) contribution to technological innovation via relational means. Most of the CIOs in our study were able to successfully influence other executives to support these innovations which led to better IT-business alignment. However, other CIOs in our study were unsuccessful at influencing executives, which increased the disconnection between the CIO and the executive. Building on this study, we suggest significant practices and behaviors that CIOs can use to successfully influence other executives regarding technological innovations. CIOs must recognize that the relational side of technology alignment should be leveraged for them to successfully manage their contribution to technological innovation

Investigation of How IT Leadership Impacts IT-Business Alignment through Shared Domain Knowledge and Knowledge Integration

Using full range leadership model and the knowledge-based view of organizations, we develop and test a model linking Information Technology (IT) leadership to IT-business alignment. Specifically, we examine how transformational IT leadership behaviors influence IT-business alignment through mechanisms that develop shared domain knowledge between IT and business personnel and mechanisms that integrate specialized IT and business knowledge. We also examine how the former mechanisms influence the efficiency of the latter. This study contributes to the existing literature by suggesting transformational leadership and mechanisms related to knowledge integration as key factors in IT-business alignment