IT Alignment Research Articles

From IT deployment capabilities to competitive advantage: An exploratory study in China

As more and more companies are deploying, or plan to deploy, information systems, the organizational capabilities to effectively deploy information technologies to support and shape businesses become increasingly important. While many studies have focused on how to acquire state-of-the-art information technologies and on how to effectively utilize implemented information technologies, more studies are still needed to investigate how a company can successfully deploy acquired information technologies to support and shape businesses strategies and value chain activities. IT deployment capabilities are defined as the organizational capabilities to configure and reconfigure a company's information system by adding new IT components or by adapting the existing information systems in order to make the whole information system available to support and shape businesses. This study identifies and investigates the three building blocks of IT deployment capabilities: strategic IT flexibility, business---IT partnership, and business---IT alignment. Using the resource-based view, we propose a framework to explain the relationship between IT deployment capabilities and competitive advantage. The research model is tested on data collected in China. Results show that strategic IT flexibility and business---IT partnership have direct impacts on competitive advantage, while business---IT alignment has an indirect impact on competitive advantage. The effect of business---IT alignment on competitive advantage is fully mediated by strategic IT flexibility and business---IT partnership. The results provide support for the relationship between IT deployment capabilities and competitive advantage. The study presents implications for how to develop IT deployment capabilities and how to generate business value from IT investment.

IT 거버넌스 의사결정 영역에 대한 CEO와 CIO의 지식공유 정도가 정보시스템 효과성에 미치는 영향에 관한 연구

【This study empirically tested a research model and hypothesis extracted and based on IT governance and knowledge sharing theories. In this study we targeted CIO and IS managers to find the effects of the degree of knowledge sharing between CEO and CIO regarding five areas of IT governance decision-making: IT principles, IT architecture, IT infrastructure, business application needs, and IT investment and prioritization, on IT and business alignment. Additionally we studied the effects of business alignment on the effectiveness of information systems. Results showed that the degree of knowledge sharing in CEO and CIO on IT principles, IT infrastructure, IT investment and prioritization had a positive influence on IT and business alignment, ultimately showing a positive influence on the effectiveness of information systems. This research has shown that fording the preferable relationship between IT and business affected by performing high quality decision making based on knowledge sharing and consequently it also is a basis to provide a positive influence to the effectiveness of the information system.】

The influence of strategy‐making types on IT alignment in SMEs

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to evaluate and compare the influence of three strategy‐making modes (planned, adaptive and entrepreneurial) on IT‐business strategy alignment in small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs).Design/methodology/approachEmpirical research using a questionnaire was conducted. In total, 108 SME owners and managers participated in the study and the data were analysed using quantitative techniques.FindingsThe planned mode provided better results as predicted. Each strategy‐making mode was found to influence certain specific aspects of alignment and performance. For instance the planned mode ensures better understanding of business and IT objectives and provides high growth sales. The adaptive mode encourages participation of stakeholders in planning and improves communication and staff productivity. The entrepreneurial mode can facilitate immediate revision of plans in organizations operating in dynamic and competitive environment.Research limitations/implicationsMany factors influencing alignment were excluded. Second, the study was conducted in only three provinces and excluded the views of staff and IT personnel. These limit generalization of findings.Practical implicationsAssistance in planning and access to support programmes are necessary. Understanding the impact of SME characteristics can also assist the government in prioritizing resource allocations and focusing development programmes. The inconclusive results of this study, the impact on alignment of practices such as corporate governance, use of the balanced scorecard, and affirmative action should be researched further.Originality/valueThis was the first attempt to investigate the relationship between strategy‐making practices and IT alignment in South African SMEs. It provides empirical evidence confirming that these practices influence specific aspects of alignment and performance. SME managers can adopt the approach used to identify practices that ensure better alignment.

Business IT Alignment and Technology Adoption; The Case of RFID in the Logistics Domain

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is increasingly applied in the logistics domain. As with other emerging technologies it is complex whether, when and how an organization should invest in RFID. In this paper the decision to adopt RFID in the logistic domain is explored. The authors take a business/IT-alignment approach and investigate the relation between business/IT-alignment principles and preference for RFID applications. A comparison of thirteen organizations that operate one or more warehouses shows that managers and decision makers in companies are not necessarily in sync with the business/IT-alignment principle which implies to further mature in the areas/domains that are least developed. Organizations were more prone to invest in business/IT areas that are already well developed. We conclude that other factors influence decisions to apply this type of new technology. Yet, the framework offers the opportunity to analyze and prepare a technology decision; it provides insight in and arguments for possible RFID adoption.

IT Alignment: An Annotated Bibliography

We provide summaries of over 150 alignment articles. The information is intended to assist faculty and graduate students who are conducting IT alignment-related research. The findings presented should interest practitioners also. We hope that the article will facilitate the ongoing study and practice of IT alignment.

IT Alignment: What Have We Learned?

We provide a review of the alignment literature in IT, addressing questions such as: What have we learned? What is disputed? Who are contributors to the debate? The article is intended to be useful to faculty and graduate students considering conducting research on alignment, instructors preparing lectures, and practitioners seeking to assess the ‘state-of-play’. It is both informational and provocative. Challenges to the value of alignment research, divergent views, and new perspectives on alignment are presented. It is hoped that the article will spark helpful conversation on the merits of continued investigation of IT alignment.

Effective Change Management: Ensuring Alignment of IT and Business Functions

This article originally published as “Change Management” in EDPACS, 2005, 33(4):12–24.

Remote application services as means for aligning business and IT

Organisations are constantly aspiring to maximize IT value. Prior research has shown that alignment between business and IT strategies and structures is a prerequisite to capturing IT value, but no previous study has suggested remote hosting as an affordable means for achieving business and IT alignment. The paper demonstrates, via a case study, how such alignment has been achieved by means of remote application services. Two previously published models are used to analyse and discuss the alignment process. The case also presents a somewhat innovative hybrid ASP-outsourcing solution, used to mitigate risks.

Aligning Business and It: The Process-Driven Architecture Model

Due to the fact that the corporate IT function is tightly coupled to enterprise processes and the organization's information needs, today's IT investments and processes are driven by the same dynamics as the enterprise itself. This article describes a model of a four-layer process-driven architecture (PDA) that can be used as a framework for addressing the alignment of business and IT.

Managing requirements for a US$1bn IT-based business transformation: New approaches and challenges

Managing uncertainty and complexity in IT based business transformation presents new requirements engineering (RE) challenges where requirements are not known up-front and business outcomes have to be delivered over time in dynamic alignment with market developments. Responding to these challenges necessitates new RE techniques that go beyond the traditional goals of completeness, correctness and consistency and focuses instead on business needs and IT alignment. Using the case of a major IT based business transformation in a large retail bank, this paper outlines new approaches being applied in practice and identifies areas for further RE research.

Customer relationship management: Are software applications aligned with business objectives?

Customer relationship management (CRM) can be thought of as IT-enabled relationship marketing. It has numerous definitions and perspectives, and success of implementation has been limited to date. This paper examines recent literature on the subject, drawing attention to the importance of a balance between strategy formulation, IT and organisational alignment when adopting and implementing CRM. It then discusses results of an exploratory study carried out amongst 34 South African organisations on their business objectives for CRM, the CRM applications that they have invested in or are considering, and the extent of integration of their customer data. The most important objectives and most widely used CRM applications are determined, and associations between applications and objectives are analysed. It is not apparent that CRM applications are selected in line with business objectives, and expected associations with objectives often do not exist for the objectives rated most important. Only certain aspects of customer data integration are significantly linked to objectives or CRM applications. The study suggests the need for fuller determination of strategy and objectives when involved with CRM investigation and adoption, and co-ordination at all levels of implementation between Marketing and IT.

Do supply chain IT alignment and supply chain interfirm system integration impact upon brand equity and firm performance?

Researchers and managers have recently shown increasing interest in measuring the return on intangible assets, including brand equity. However, in today's complicated business world, understanding such intangible assets in the single firm context offers only a limited view. Drawing on the resource-based view of the firm, this study explores supply chain specific IT resources such as IT alignment and interfirm system integration between supply chain partners as antecedents of brand equity, relating brand equity to firm performance variables. Furthermore, the study framework incorporates IT appropriability as a firm's internal facilitator and partner dependence as a relational factor that form such supply chain IT resources. The results indicate that both IT alignment and interfirm system integration have positive effects on brand equity while supply chain IT resources are affected by the relational factor, partner dependence. IT appropriability affects IT alignment and IT alignment is found to mediate the relationship between IT appropriability and interfirm system integration.

B-SCP: A requirements analysis framework for validating strategic alignment of organizational IT based on strategy, context, and process

Ensuring that organizational IT is in alignment with and provides support for an organization's business strategy is critical to business success. Despite this, business strategy and strategic alignment issues are all but ignored in the requirements engineering research literature. We present B-SCP, a requirements engineering framework for organizational IT that directly addresses an organization's business strategy and the alignment of IT requirements with that strategy. B-SCP integrates the three themes of strategy, context, and process using a requirements engineering notation for each theme. We demonstrate a means of cross-referencing and integrating the notations with each other, enabling explicit traceability between business processes and business strategy. In addition, we show a means of defining requirements problem scope as a Jackson problem diagram by applying a business modeling framework. Our approach is illustrated via application to an exemplar. The case example demonstrates the feasibility of B-SCP, and we present a comparison with other approaches.

Who Took the Cookie from the Cookie Jar?

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) continues to entice enterprises by promising flexibility, agility and alignment of IT with business objectives; along with the ever elusive advantages of increased reuse, better security, control over integration expenditures, and reduced IT maintenance costs. However, as we have learned over the last two decades achieving these benefits has more to do with behaviors, policies and procedures rather than the quality of the strategy, architecture or code.

Three IT-Business Alignment Profiles: Technical Resource, Business Enabler, and Strategic Weapon

There is a growing recognition among alignment researchers and IT professionals that “one size does not fit all.” In this article, we provide an important extension of alignment research that shows three profiles linking IT to different business objectives. We address the need to identify the appropriate types of IT alignment by using a multi-method study including interviews and cases. Two dimensions define the three alignment profiles: internal IT-business integration and external market engagement. The technical resource profile calls for low levels of IT-business integration and IT-market engagement. The business enabler profile deploys IT in some business processes and begins engaging IT with customers and suppliers. The strategic weapon profile uses IT to mobilize and extend the enterprise, which requires extensive IT deployment, both internally and externally. Each profile differs in strategies, criteria, capabilities, and mental models. Importantly, IT decision-makers should not adopt stage-model thinking which assumes that technical resource profiles naturally progress up the chain. Rather, successful use of IT requires specifying the requisite alignment profile as an initial design decision so that appropriate levels of resource allocation and management involvement occur.

Post-merger IT integration strategies: An IT alignment perspective

When a company decides to merge with or to acquire another company, a major question is to what extent to integrate the information technologies and the organization. Interpreting merger objectives to proper IT integration strategies is a complex and time-consuming process, due to a lack of explicit understanding of the problems involved. The current literature in this field is meager and has not yet resulted in a theory. For this purpose, we developed a variant of the IT alignment model. In this model, we identify three ambition levels of mergers and IT integration from the literature. Additionally, we describe four integration methods that fit with these ambitions. The relations between these objectives and methods are moderated by contextual factors. Three hospital cases, with different merger and IT integration ambitions, describe the practice of this model. The case studies also add several new variables and relations to it. This result facilitates further research in post-merger IT integration by delivering an empirical research model.

BITAM: An engineering-principled method for managing misalignments between business and IT architectures

As the rates of business and technological changes accelerate, misalignments between business and IT architectures are inevitable. Existing alignment models, while important for raising awareness of alignment issues, have provided little in the way of guidance for actually correcting misalignment and thus achieving alignment. This paper introduces the BITAM (Business IT Alignment Method) which is a process that describes a set of twelve steps for managing, detecting and correcting misalignment. The methodology is an integration of two hitherto distinct analysis areas: business analysis and architecture analysis. The BITAM is illustrated via a case study conducted with a Fortune 100 company.

Information technology Alignment Planning—a case study

This paper describes the Information Technology Alignment Planning Process—a strategic IT planning process created to complement the corporate planning model used by a major Utility company in the Midwest. Corporate planning activities produced the divisional strategies, critical success factors, and goals that then were used to by the IT Alignment Planning process to align IT within the company. The process is intended to aid in making the best possible use of IT resources in meeting the corporation’s business objectives. Fifty-eight managers from five major business units participated in the study. Several important factors and their resulting benefits were identified. The model utilized an intuitive color-coded alternative to statistical output that was readily accepted by management. We found that the process helped align IT with business strategies and improved and facilitated communication on IT project management and development.

Progress in the IT/Business Relationship: A Longitudinal Assessment

This paper investigates perceptions of the IT/business relationship held by 653 IT managers and their staff and 503 of their business counterparts. On the basis of data collected over a 3-year period using a survey instrument, the paper highlights areas of perceived difficulty in the IT/business relationship and seeks evidence of trends in the business/IT relationship. The data reveal significant differences in the perceptions of business managers and those of IT professionals, especially with respect to issues of IT system efficacy and communication efficacy. Both cohorts demonstrate increasing awareness of the importance of IT as a driver of business activity, as well as comparable upward or downward trends in response on issues relating to IT's alignment with business strategy and communication efficacy, but only the first mentioned issue is identified as a statistically significant trend.

The it Alignment Planning Process

In 1998, the Information Technology Division (ITD) of Omaha Public Power District (OPPD) jointly developed an IT Alignment Planning Model with their Energy Services Unit. The model helped identify areas of information concern, resulted in the prioritized development of IT strategies, and served as a pilot for the corporate-wide implementation of the IT Alignment Planning process.The IT Alignment Planning process was then applied to the five OPPD business units, giving management a view of Information Concerns and possible solutions. By tying the planning process directly to each business unit's Critical Success Factors (CSFs) in their strategic plans, IT Alignment Planning presented a strategic view of information and IT systems, products, and services across the corporation. The process also provided input into strategic and tactical planning processes, and considered the effects of competition on the objective of improving information quality for IT clients.