Leadership in business-IT alignment: implications of generation gaps

Over the past few decades, information technologies (IT) have dramatically changed the way individuals communicate, work and live their lives. Organizations have been learning to explore the possibilities that technologies offer to enhance their employees' capabilities or the relationship with customers, suppliers and other stakeholders. Older and younger generations view, use, develop and define strategies to better manage the IT in the workplace today. Indeed, a significant number of daily operations in most performant companies are dependent on IT. Yet, business IT alignment remains as one of the most important issues among IT managers. This concern is justified by the conviction, already evidenced in previous studies, that higher alignment positively influences the business performance of companies. Also, alignment is made by people. As each person is unique, when it concerns the relation with technology, differences among people, such as the age, should be understood and taken into consideration. As managers from different generations lead business and IT in companies, different values and mindsets come into play, leading to different perceptions, motivations and attitudes, and consequently, implying different leadership approaches. Nowadays, three generations usually cohabit in the workplace: Baby Boomers, Generation X and Millennials. Although using stereotypes may be a problem, people from these generations have analogous characteristics which are interesting to depict in order to better understand their involvement in the workplace context and their leadership styles. This paper presents empirical results from a survey conducted among 408 business and IT managers from 238 medium size and large Portuguese companies. The results seem to show that different generations influence in a different way the alignment of business and information technology. Older generations seem to consider that their companies have a higher alignment maturity than younger generations. A sensitive analysis of the survey results aThis work has been supported by FCT - Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia within the Project Scope UID/CEC/00319/2013. The authors are also grateful to Informa D& B (Dun & Bradstreet) for its support to this research by providing the database with the sample of companies and their top level management contacts.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A Critical Review of Luftman\u27s Instrument for Business-IT Alignment

Business and Information Technology alignment remains one of the most important issues among IT managers. To assess it, many proposals have been put forward over the years. As one of the most cited in Google Scholar, the Luftman’s survey instrument emerges as a promising one to assess business-IT alignment. This work presents a critical review of the Luftman’s proposal for assessing business-IT alignment by comparing it with six other relevant proposals in the literature. Each one of the selected proposals was studied in terms of the coverage of the dimensions of the Luftman’s instrument: communications, competency/value measurements, governance, partnership, technology scope and skills. Governance was the dimension better covered followed by the technology scope but the remaining dimensions were not so well covered with the skills dimension being the worst one. In fact, none of the selected proposals showed up as complete as the Luftman’s proposal. Some research has already been carried out to validate and test the Luftman’s instrument as a useful tool for practitioners and managers. The result, a more parsimonious instrument than the original one, seems a promising tool calling for further attention and use in research to get to an acceptable and recognized valid instrument to assess business-IT alignment

A critical review of Luftman´s instrument for business-IT alignment

Business and Information Technology alignment remains one of the most important issues among IT managers. To assess it, many proposals have been put forward over the years. As one of the most cited in Google Scholar, the Luftman’s survey instrument emerges as a promising one to assess business-IT alignment. This work presents a critical review of the Luftman’s proposal for assessing business-IT alignment by comparing it with six other relevant proposals in the literature. Each one of the selected proposals was studied in terms of the coverage of the dimensions of the Luftman’s instrument: communications, competency/value measurements, governance, partnership, technology scope and skills. Governance was the dimension better covered followed by the technology scope but the remaining dimensions were not so well covered with the skills dimension being the worst one. In fact, none of the selected proposals showed up as complete as the Luftman’s proposal. Some research has already been carried out to validate and test the Luftman’s instrument as a useful tool for practitioners and managers. The result, a more parsimonious instrument than the original one, seems a promising tool calling for further attention and use in research to get to an acceptable and recognized valid instrument to assess business-IT alignment.This work is supported by FEDER funding through the Competitiveness Factors Operational Programme – COMPETE and national funding through FCT – Foundation for Science and Technology under the project FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-022674

The organizational competences model: a contribution for business-IT alignment

Business-IT alignment has consistently ranked in the top five IT management concerns for almost a decade now. Despite a considerable research since the 90s, business-IT alignment still remains a challenge even more in turbulent organizational environments requiring business strategy to be more frequently examined and changed. We need effective ways to achieve and sustain alignment between the information systems and technology strategy and the business strategy so organizations become more flexible and agile. Enterprise architecture may be one of those effective ways particularly when developed under a business process management approach. Looking into a consulting practice that has adopted such approach, this research highlights the role of one particular model, the organizational competences model, in the clarification of the strategy and in the development of the enterprise architecture for a wine regulatory commission, the organization that was used as a case study

Workforce Incentives at IT companies : the Google’s Case

Organizations may have much to gain in attracting and retaining IT professionals than can help to reduce costs and improve the productivity of the business. That is even more crucial for IT companies that rely upon talented IT professionals to add value in their core business processes and not just to support them. Thus we need to better understand what motivates and keeps satisfied an IT workforce. As a successful IT company, Google may be a good example to look at adequate incentive policies for IT professionals. Using a netnographic approach, this study examined a blog discussion with the participation of past and present Google employees. The collected data was analyzed under a total rewards model, a framework from WorldatWork to encompass a diversity of topics in building a reward strategy. One of those topics, work-life, was significantly discussed showing that Google´s incentive policies take into consideration work-life sub-topics such as health and wellness, cultural environment, community involvement and work flexibility to attract and retain IT professionals. Adding to the sub-topics already proposed in the framework, some new ones popped out still under the work-life topic: equipment and technology, administrative efficiency and workplace stability. Although compensation and benefits are certainly incentives to not be disregarded, it seems there may be something else also important as work-life incentives to attract and retain an IT motivated workforce, specially, at an IT company

Desenvolvimento de um instrumento de medição do alinhamento estratégico dos processos de negócio

O alinhamento estratégico é hoje em dia um dos maiores desafios nas organizações. Para atingir esse alinhamento é fundamental clarificar e comunicar a estratégia de negócio a todas as partes da organização e garantir que os objectivos individuais sejam definidos no sentido de representarem e contribuírem para os objectivos organizacionais, garantindo assim que todos caminham no mesmo sentido. Na utilização de um referencial que propõe uma abordagem “top down”, sistémica, integrada e orientada a processos, através da concepção e implementação de um modelo de melhoria contínua assente numa arquitectura de competências organizacionais, pode estar uma solução para garantir um alinhamento estratégico dos processos de negócio e tornar a organização mais ágil e eficaz. Para que se possa aferir da utilidade de um tal referencial, importa dispor de um instrumento para medir o alinhamento estratégico dos processos de negócio. Da revisão de literatura efectuada, propõe-se um conjunto inicial de variáveis a considerar no instrumento

IT governance for public universities: developing a model

Information technology (IT) has become essential in supporting the growth and sustainability of all types of organizations. Universities are one of those types that are more and more dependent on IT having a technological infrastructure made of heterogeneous technologies that turns IT Governance into a real challenge. The teaching-learning and research processes, nuclear for universities, require effective and efficient IT governance so universities remain competitive. IT governance calls for the definition and implementation of formal practices at the highest level in the organization involving structures, processes and relational mechanisms for the creation of business value from IT investments. However, it is quite notorious the difficulty in defining and implementing those practices from frameworks such as COBIT, ITIL, ISO/IEC 38500, among others. The level of adoption of such frameworks at universities is quite low, superficial or limited in scope. To address these issues, we propose, using design science research, the development of an IT governance model for public universities. The model will be designed having the appropriate mechanisms identified through survey research and case studies involving Portuguese and Brazilian public universities. We expect to contribute with a model having structures, processes and relational mechanisms suitable for the public sector universities with the guidelines for effective and efficient IT governance. Moreover, contributions to the body of knowledge, regarding the adoption of frameworks such as COBIT and ITIL, taking in consideration contextual and contingency factors, are also expected in what particularly relates to Portuguese and Brazilian public universities.CAPES - Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior(UID/CEC/00319/2013)This work was supported by CAPES Foundation, Ministry of Education of Brazil Process n.º10415/13-0 and by FCT – Foundation for Science and Technology, project UID/CEC/00319/2013.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Developing an instrument to assess information technology staff motivation

Motivation is a key factor that influences individual effort, which, in turn, affects individual and organizational performance. Nevertheless, motivation at work depends on the organizational rewards and incentives, according to individual goals. This paper reports on the development of an instrument designed to measure the motivation of Information Technology people at their workplace. Psychology theories and work addressing intrinsic and extrinsic motivation have been studied. Some motivation instruments were reviewed and analyzed. Specificities and special characteristics regarding IT workers were evidenced and combined with other more general motivation factors. The instrument has been developed according to the five dimensions of the Worldatwork framework, resulting in a set of 30 scale items addressing 23 variables. Besides measuring the IT motivation levels, the tool may also help any organization to understand the weaknesses and strengths regarding incentive policies, and therefore, assist on the definition of new ones

Gobernanza de TI para universidades públicas: propuesta de marco usando diseño de investigación en ciencias

Universities are complex organizations dependent on information technology. Their technological infrastructure consists of a variety of applications, different platforms, academic systems, cloud applications and heterogeneous technologies. The goals and objectives of a university are different from traditional organizations. As organizations aim to generate economic value and reduce costs, the universities, the public ones, are particularly concerned with generating, sharing and transferring knowledge to the society that support them. In this way, IT support to core activities such as research and teaching require appropriate IT governance mechanisms making use of frameworks and maturity models. The literature presents a variety of frameworks to help organizations implement IT governance. However, these frameworks are complex, complicated and difficult to interpret and use. Organizations usually choose to develop their frameworks considering their features and business reality. This work highlights of the importance of developing an IT governance framework specifically to the context of the university, and delineates a set of steps for a proposal building upon identification mechanisms, techniques and IT governance tools used in universities of different countries. In this way, this article purpose a development framework using the method design science research.Las universidades son organizaciones complejas que dependen de la tecnología de la información. Su infraestructura tecnológica consiste en una variedad de aplicaciones, diferentes plataformas, sistemas académicos, aplicaciones en la nube y tecnologías heterogéneas. Las metas y objetivos de una universidad son diferentes al de las organizaciones tradicionales. Como organizaciones tienen como objetivo generar valor económico y reducir los costos, las universidades, las públicas, son particularmente preocupados por generar, compartir y transferir conocimiento a la sociedad que los apoyan. De esta forma, soporte de TI a las actividades básicas tales como la investigación y la enseñanza requieren mecanismos de gobernanza de TI adecuadas que hacen uso de marcos y modelos de madurez. La literatura presenta una variedad de marcos para ayudar a las organizaciones a implementar el gobierno de TI. Sin embargo, estos marcos son complejos, complicados y difíciles de interpretar y utilizar. Organizaciones por lo general optan por desarrollar sus marcos, considerando sus características y la realidad empresarial. Este trabajo destaca la importancia de desarrollar un marco de gobierno de TI específicamente para el contexto de la universidad, y delinea una serie de pasos para un edificio propuesta sobre mecanismos de identificación, técnicas y herramientas de gobernanza de TI utilizados en universidades de diferentes países. De esta manera, este artículo finalidad un marco de desarrollo mediante el método de investigación de la ciencia del diseño.(undefined)info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Dialogical action research for better enterprise architecture implementation

Business-IT alignment has been studied for quite some time but it is still a key concern for IT executives. Traditional approaches may have been successful in the past, as researchers have been studying business-IT alignment concerning its impact on organizational performance or its antecedents. However, the question remains: “how to provide an easy and quick way of achieving and sustaining Business-IT alignment?” Enterprise Architecture implementation under a Business Process Management approach may be a useful way of looking into good practices to achieve and sustain business-IT alignment. This work emphasizes the adoption of Dialogical Action Research as an adequate methodology to improve theoria and praxis for a better enterprise architecture implementation. Supported on reflective one-on-one dialogues between researcher and practitioner, dialogical action research acknowledges the important role and contributions of the latter for enterprise architecture implementation when compared with the modest contributions from academia. Emerging from many years of practice, a particular praxis is under examination in this work particularly regarding the development of an organizational competences model considered as an important piece for enterprise architecture implementation. Such model fosters the discussion of the business strategy while making clear the interrelations among competences and more explicit the business model. From a dialogical action research, as work is carried out, recommendations will be issued to improve consulting praxis and inform theoria while solving real world problems in the course of enterprise architecture implementation at municipalities.This work is supported by FEDER funding through the Competitiveness Factors Operational Programme – COMPETE and national funding through FCT – Foundation for Science and Technology under the project FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-022674