Twenty-five years ago – as the building blocks of alignment were emerging – Venkatraman and Prescott (1990) claimed that the choice, construction, and use of the various alignment measures are rarely acknowledged by researchers. They recommend that researchers focus on measurable goals such as business value or customer satisfaction rather than on internal performance indicators that often lack practicality.Ĭoncerns with the form and function of strategic IT alignment are not new. This result highlights a disparity between managerial perception and the measurement of IT alignment, prompting InformationWeek to conclude that a better way to define and measure IT alignment is required ( Preston, 2014). A surprising aspect of this research is that 81% of respondents said they agree with the premise that ‘IT is aligned with the business’. The latest 2014 SIM survey identifies IT alignment as the third most important ‘priority’ or ‘worry area’ for CIOs ( Preston, 2014). Annual CIO surveys conducted by the Society for Information Management (SIM) repeatedly put IT alignment among the top three challenges facing IT executives ( Luftman et al., 2013). Industry publications such as CIO Magazine and InformationWeek have dedicated cover stories, articles, and blogs to the challenges of achieving and sustaining IT alignment ( Moore, 2012). (2007) note that focusing on alignment as a remedy for IT-related problems can be equally wasteful. Throwing money at instances of misalignment can be wasteful and misguided if the cause of misalignment is unrelated to the level of IT investment. Getting the right level and type of alignment is important, therefore. However, research also indicates that organizations can fall into a rigidity trap where tight or inflexible links between business and IT can delay or impede an organization’s ability to respond quickly to environmental change ( Benbya and McKelvey, 2006 Tallon and Pinsonneault, 2011). Models of strategic alignment and its components have been proposed and extended over time as a way to provide managers with more practical ways to achieve alignment ( Sabherwal et al., 2001 Avison et al., 2004). Over time, research has identified several antecedents that influence strategic alignment such as shared understanding between business and IT as to the strategic nature of IT ( Preston and Karahanna, 2009), governance mechanisms for IT ( Wu et al., forthcoming), enterprise architecture maturity ( Bradley et al., 2012), and strategic direction ( Sabherwal and Chan, 2001). The central argument underlying these studies is that organizations will perform well when key IT resources – physical IT infrastructure components, technical and managerial IT skills, and knowledge assets − are aligned with business strategy and when appropriate structures are used to supervise the deployment and effective management of these resources. Recent research continues to build on empirical evidence that reveals positive effects of alignment on business performance ( Sabherwal and Chan, 2001 Oh and Pinsonneault, 2007 Yayla and Hu, 2012 Gerow et al., 2014). Interest in understanding the antecedents and consequences of alignment between business and IT is now an established theme in IS research. After almost a quarter century and 3200 citations (as of October 2014), many researchers would also include work by Henderson and Venkatraman (1993) – first published in the IBM Systems Journal under the heading, ‘Strategic Alignment: Leveraging Information Technology for Transforming Organizations’ – on the list of seminal and transformative IS publications. The information systems (IS) field – despite its relative youthfulness – can point to examples of seminal research by Davis (1989) on technology acceptance or Brynjolfsson and Hitt (1996) on information technology (IT) payoffs as the foundation of whole new areas of research. All research streams can trace their lineage to an initial paper or series of papers.
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