Post-acquisition IT Integration: The sequential effects in growth-by-acquisition programs

The extant research on post-acquisition IT integration analyzes how acquirers realize IT-based value in individual acquisitions. However, serial acquirers make 60% of acquisitions. These acquisitions are not isolated events, but are components in growth-by-acquisition programs. To explain how serial acquirers realize IT-based value, we develop three propositions on the sequential effects on post-acquisition IT integration in acquisition programs. Their combined explanation is that serial acquirers must have a growth-by-acquisition strategy that includes the capability to improve IT integration capabilities, to sustain high alignment across acquisitions and to maintain a scalable IT infrastructure with a flat or decreasing cost structure. We begin the process of validating the three propositions by investigating a longitudinal case study of a growth-by-acquisition program

Consumers\u27 perception of control over online information disclosure. an electronic focus group study

This study focuses on consumers’ perception of control over personal information disclosure on the Internet. Specifically, we examine how consumers perceive controlling their personal data that online companies collect for marketing and customer relationship management purposes. We aim to answer this research problem by clarifying 1) how do consumers express the perception of control over their personal information, and 2) how do consumers perceive controlling their personal information disclosure. Our empirical data is based on four computer-mediated focus group interviews. Our findings show that the perception of control is combined with all stages of personal data utilization: collection, storage and usage. Thus, consumers keep these stages in mind when thinking about their attitudes towards the collection and offering of their personal information. The interviewees also spontaneously mentioned various means with which they control personal data. Perceived trust towards companies, own initiative and permission-based marketing were also combined to the control speech. In summary, the interviewees mostly perceived that they were not controlling their personal data on the Internet. Only when they were talking about control methods of the information disclosure stage, they expressed the perception of control

The Dynamics of Strategic IT Alignment during IT-based Business Transformation

IT alignment a key driver of organizational performance and an important and enduring issue for the IS discipline and practice. However, progress in the literature as been slow and learning is low. IT alignment is hampered by poor definition, inadequate guidelines to correct misalignment and static/cross-sectional analysis of what is essentially a dynamic issue. This paper provides a novel model of dynamic strategic IT alignment. The model addresses the challenges of IT alignment over time. It analyses alignment between espoused business and IT strategies, at both Corporate and SBU levels, and enacted strategies in the form of an organization’s shared IT platform and portfolio of IT, used and owned by individual business units. The model is tested empirically using a multilevel longitudinal case study. We argue that this novel model of Dynamic IT alignment simplifies IT alignment, identifying the initial strategic choices to establish initial alignment and further choices to sustain alignment over time and as further strategic decisions are made. Importantly, strategic decisions that initially establish misalignment between IS and Business are irreversible and the resulting misalignment is not correctable until the next investment cycle

Aligning Business and IT Strategies in Multi-Business Organizations

The alignment of business and information technology (IT) strategies is an important and enduring theoretical challenge for the information systems discipline, remaining a top issue in practice for the past twenty years. Multi-business organizations (MBOs), present a particular alignment challenge, where business strategies are developed at both the corporate level and within individual strategic business units (SBUs) across the corporate investment cycle. In contrast, the extant literature implicitly assumes that IT strategy is aligned with a single business strategy at a single point in time. This study draws on resource-based theory (RBT) and path dependence to reconceptualize business and IT strategic alignment in MBOs. Drawing on Makadok’s (2010; 2011) theory of profit, we show how functional, structural and dynamic alignment, create value in MBOs through three strategic drivers: governance, competence and flexibility. This has implications for existing IT alignment models, providing alternative theoretical explanations of how IT alignment creates value

Why Information Systems Development Projects are Always Late

Information systems development projects (ISD) are characterized by high rates of failure and escalation. To address this concern, in this paper a novel explanation for the poor performance is developed, which explores the influence two variables: task variance and task dependence. The findings suggest that the improvement in performance has been slow because of the interactive effect of the two variables driving both the level of, and variance in, performance. To address this problem, the paper concludes with a number of practical suggestions

Managing the IT Integration of Acquisitions by Multi-Business Organizations

Acquisitions are standard components of the growth strategies of many organizations. Frequently, acquisitions raise important questions concerning how and to what extent the acquisition’s information technology (IT) needs to be integrated into the IT of the acquirer. We investigate how the initial conditions of business and IT alignment in the acquirer and the acquisition affect the complexity of the post-acquisition IT integration process, in acquisitions of business units by multi-business organizations. Adopting an IT alignment model for multi-business organizations, we explain the complexity of IT integration paths in two acquisitions made by the industry group Trelleborg AB. We identify four initial business and IT strategic alignment conditions where the IT integration process is a simple one-step process exploiting existing business and IT capabilities. Low compliance with these conditions leads to increased complexity because additional business and/or IT capabilities have to be developed to leverage the full potential of the acquisition