Social Capital and Alignment Between Business and IS - A Deep Dive Into the Impact of Trust

This paper examines the role of trust in building social capital in organisations to create alignment between the business and IS communities. The two communities often have little in common and experience difficulties sharing objectives, deliverables and even communicating with each other and frequently do not perceive themselves as part of a common, unified organisation. Examining the findings of a broader study, this paper shines a spotlight on the impact of trust. That larger study examined social capital and its impact on alignment, taking a dimensional approach to social capital analysing it in terms of network relationships, shared norms, trust, reciprocity expectation and collective efficacy. Higher levels of social capital across the boundaries between business and IS leads to improved alignment. Offering a ‘deep dive’ into one of the dimensions of social capital, this paper focuses on the impact of trust on that relationship and the consequences for alignment

Mutual Understanding Determinants for Effective Communication in Business and IT Strategic Alignment Planning

Business and IT strategic alignment is continuously explored from different facets motivated by the demands for organisation to be well aligned in its business and IT strategies for business continuity. The management aspect rather than technological issues often causes misalignment in business and IT strategies more significantly. One of the issues is the communication ineffectiveness between business and IT people involved in planning the business and IT strategic alignment. Difficulty to achieve mutual understanding between these two teams is a critical problem in communication and hinders the successful alignment. Therefore, a set of determinants for mutual understanding is proposed. Extensive analysis on literature has been carried out to identify and define the determining factors. The review can serve as a reference for business and IT executives to improve in their communication effectiveness towards achieving well aligned business and IT strategic alignment