IT alignment: what have we learned?
TL;DR: Challenges to the value of alignment research, divergent views, and new perspectives on alignment are presented and it is hoped that the article will spark helpful conversation on the merits of continued investigation of IT alignment.
Abstract: 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.
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TL;DR: The time is right to rethink the role of IT strategy, from that of a functional-level strategy--aligned but essentially always subordinate to business strategy--to one that reflects a fusion between IT strategy and business strategy, herein termed digital business strategy.
Abstract: Over the last three decades, the prevailing view of information technology strategy has been that it is a functional-level strategy that must be aligned with the firm's chosen business strategy. Even within this so-called alignment view, business strategy directed IT strategy. During the last decade, the business infrastructure has become digital with increased interconnections among products, processes, and services. Across many firms spanning different industries and sectors, digital technologies (viewed as combinations of information, computing, communication, and connectivity technologies) are fundamentally transforming business strategies, business processes, firm capabilities, products and services, and key interfirm relationships in extended business networks. Accordingly, we argue that the time is right to rethink the role of IT strategy, from that of a functional-level strategy--aligned but essentially always subordinate to business strategy--to one that reflects a fusion between IT strategy and business strategy. This fusion is herein termed digital business strategy.
We identify four key themes to guide our thinking on digital business strategy and help provide a framework to define the next generation of insights. The four themes are (1) the scope of digital business strategy, (2) the scale of digital business strategy, (3) the speed of digital business strategy, and (4) the sources of business value creation and capture in digital business strategy. After elaborating on each of these four themes, we discuss the success metrics and potential performance implications from pursuing a digital business strategy. We also show how the papers in the special issue shed light on digital strategies and offer directions to advance insights and shape future research.
1,983 citations
TL;DR: This book will not become a unity of the way for you to get amazing benefits at all, but, it will serve something that will let you get the best time and moment to spend for reading the book.
Abstract: It sounds good when knowing the nature of managerial work in this website. This is one of the books that many people looking for. In the past, many people ask about this book as their favourite book to read and collect. And now, we present hat you need quickly. It seems to be so happy to offer you this famous book. It will not become a unity of the way for you to get amazing benefits at all. But, it will serve something that will let you get the best time and moment to spend for reading the book.
1,560 citations
618 citations
TL;DR: The major finding is that business/IT alignment maturity is higher when organisations are applying a mix of mature IT governance practices.
Abstract: IT governance is one of these concepts that suddenly emerged and became an important issue in the information technology area. Many organisations started with the implementation of IT governance to achieve a better alignment between business and IT. This paper carries interpretations regarding important existing theories, models, and practices in the IT governance domain and presents research questions derived from it. Next, multiple research strategies are triangulated in order to explore how organisations are implementing IT governance and to analyse the relationship between these implementations and business/IT alignment. The major finding is that business/IT alignment maturity is higher when organisations are applying a mix of mature IT governance practices.
490 citations
Cites background from "IT alignment: what have we learned?..."
...They also stress it is important to not only list potential antecedents of alignment (as other research efforts did), but to also identify relationships between them and towards alignment (Chan & Reich, 2007)....
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TL;DR: This study follows a perspective paradigm based on the strategic management literature to define IS strategy as an organizational perspective on the investment in, deployment, use, and management of IS.
Abstract: Information systems strategy is of central importance to IS practice and research. Our extensive review of the literature suggests that the concept of IS strategy is a term that is used readily; however, it is also a term that is not fully understood. In this study, we follow a perspective paradigm based on the strategic management literature to define IS strategy as an organizational perspective on the investment in, deployment, use, and management of IS. Through a systematic literature search, we identify the following three conceptions of IS strategy employed implicitly in 48 articles published in leading IS journals that focus on the construct of IS strategy: (1) IS strategy as the use of IS to support business strategy; (2) IS strategy as the master plan of the IS function; and (3) IS strategy as the shared view of the IS role within the organization. We find the third conception best fits our definition of IS strategy. As such, we consequently propose to operationalize IS strategy as the degree to which the organization has a shared perspective to seek innovation through IS. Specifically, our proposed IS strategic typology suggests an organization's IS strategy falls into one of the two defined categories (i.e., IS innovator or IS conservative) or is simply undefined. We also develop measures for this new typology. We argue that the proposed instrument, which was cross-validated across both chief information officers and senior business executives, has the potential to serve as a diagnostic tool through which the organization can directly assess its IS strategy. We contend that our reconceptualization and operationalization of IS strategy provides theoretical and practical implications that advance the current level of understanding of IS strategy from extant studies within three predominant literature streams: strategic IS planning, IS/business strategic alignment, and competitive use of IS.
438 citations
References
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TL;DR: In this article, structural holes are defined as network gaps between players which create entrepreneurial opportunities for information access, timing, referrals, and for control, and the structural holes also generate control benefits giving certain players an advantage in negotiating their relationships.
Abstract: The study analyzes the social structure of competition. It addresses the consequences of voids in relational and resource networks. Competitive behavior can be understood in terms of player access to \"holes\" in the social structure of the competitive arena. Those \"structural holes\" are network gaps between players which create entrepreneurial opportunities for information access, timing, referrals, and for control. A player brings capital to the competitive arena and walks away with profit determined by the rate of return where the capital was invested. The rate of return is keyed to the social structure of the competitive arena. Each player brings three kinds of capital to the competitive arena: financial capital, such as money and investments; human capital, such as his or her natural qualities and skills; and social capital, i.e. networks of other players. Social capital is the final determinant of competitive success. Something about the structure of a player's network (his or her relations with other players, such as colleagues, friends, and clients), and the location of the player's network in the structure of the arena defines the player's chances of getting higher rates of return. These chances are enhanced by two kinds of network benefits for those who can exploit structural holes: information and control. Opportunities for success are many, but it is information that plays a central role in seizing them; structural holes determine who knows about opportunities, what they know, and who gets to participate. Structural holes also generate control benefits, giving certain players an advantage in negotiating their relationships. Following sociological theory, a player who derives benefit from structural holes by brokering relationships between other conflicted players is called tertius gaudens. The essential tension in tertius strategies is not hostility of participants, but rather uncertainty; no one has absolute authority in the relationship under negotiation. The findings of empirical research indicate that structural holes are advantageous to suppliers and customers, but not to producers in their negotiated transactions, because suppliers and customers benefit from competition among producers. The information and control benefits of structural holes are advantageous to managers, and the managers who develop those benefits are an asset to the firm employing them. Managers with networks rich in structural holes often reach promotion faster. Hole effects are most evident for managers operating on a social frontier, i.e. in places where two social worlds meet. Social frontiers involve continual negotiations of the expectations of the manager and those of the people across the frontier, and thus more entrepreneurial skill is required. The most serious frontier is the political boundary between top leadership and the rest of the firm. To move up the corporate ladder, a manager has to transform his or her frame of reference from that of an employee protected by the firm, to that of a leader responsible for the firm. The findings also indicate that women and entry-rank men tend to be promoted earlier because they build hierarchical networks around a strategic partner who helps them break into higher ranks. Although the reported differences between the manager networks have clear implications for promotions, there are no differences among managers in their tendencies to have one network rather than another, which is especially striking with respect to the sex and rank differences that are observed to be important in distinguishing network effects. Structural holes provide a theoretical connection between micro and macro levels of sociological analysis. The structural hole argument extends other theories, such as personality theory, interface theory of markets and population ecology, and resource dependence and transaction cost theory
12,103 citations
"IT alignment: what have we learned?..." refers background in this paper
...be produced using only industry and strategy variables (Floyd and Woolridge, 1990; Powell, 1992; Chan et al., 1997; Cragg et al., 2002). Sabherwal and Chan (2001) found that alignment is significantly correlated with perceived business performance, although this link is complex and is dependent on the business strategy....
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...The MIT model (see Figure 1) argues that revolutionary change involving IT investment can bring about substantial rewards as long as the key elements of strategy, technology, structure, management processes and individuals and roles are kept in alignment. Henderson and Venkatraman (1992) were influenced by the MIT research in their creation of the Strategic Alignment Model (SAM), which is perhaps the most widely cited of all alignment models....
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...be produced using only industry and strategy variables (Floyd and Woolridge, 1990; Powell, 1992; Chan et al., 1997; Cragg et al., 2002). Sabherwal and Chan (2001) found that alignment is significantly correlated with perceived business performance, although this link is complex and is dependent on the business strategy. For Defender strategies, they uncovered no significant relationship between alignment and performance, whereas the alignment–performance relationship was observed for Prospectors and Analyzers. Yetton (1994) concluded that if the separation of business and IT was substantial, company performance suffered....
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...Drawing on Burt’s (1992) work on structural holes, people gain power when they are part of relationships that span the holes in a network....
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Book•
01 Jan 1992
TL;DR: In this paper, the Tertius Gaudens Entrepreneurs Secondary Holes Structural Autonomy (SSA) model is used to control the number of holes in a network.
Abstract: Acknowledgments Introduction 1. THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF COMPETITION Opportunity and Capital Information Structural Holes Control and the Tertius Gaudens Entrepreneurs Secondary Holes Structural Autonomy Summary 2. FORMALIZING THE ARGUMENT Network Data Redundancy Constraint Hole Signature Structural Autonomy Summary 3. TURNING A PROFIT Product Networks and Market Profit The Study Population Hole Effects Market Hole Signatures Summary Appendix: Weighing Alternatives 4. GETTING AHEAD Contact Networks and Manager Achievement The Study Population Hole Effects Hierarchy Institutional Holes Selecting a Network Summary Appendix A: Weighing Alternatives Appendix B: Causal Order 5. PLAYER-STRUCTURE DUALITY Structural Unit of Analysis Players and Structures Escape from Attributes No Escape Summary 6. COMMIT AND SURVIVE Holes and Heterogeneity Interface and the Commit Hypothesis Population Ecology and the Survival Hypothesis Summary 7. STRATEGIC EMBEDDING AND INSTITUTIONAL RESIDUE The Other Tertius Strategy Hypothesis Formal Organization as Social Residue Personality as Emotional Residue Summary Notes References Index
10,616 citations
TL;DR: The proposed theoretical framework deals with alternative ways in which organizations define their product-market domains (strategy) and construct mechanisms (structures and processes) to pursue these strategies.
7,506 citations
Book•
01 Jun 1978
TL;DR: In this paper, a theoretical framework for organizational adaptation is proposed, which deals with alternative ways in which organizations define their product-market domains (strategies) and construct mechanisms (structures and processes) to pursue these strategies.
Abstract: Organizational adaptation is a topic that has received only limited and fragmented theoretical treatment. Any attempt to examine organizational adaptation is difficult, since the process is highly complex and changeable. The proposed theoretical framework deals with alternative ways in which organizations define their product-market domains (strategy) and construct mechanisms (structures and processes) to pursue these strategies. The framework is based on interpretation of existing literature and continuing studies in four industries (college textbook publishing, electronics, food processing, and health care).
6,421 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1973
TL;DR: The Manager's Working Roles: A Survey of the Managerial Work of Five Chief Executives as discussed by the authors is a survey of the work of five chief executives in the 1990s.
Abstract: 1. Introduction. 2. Contemporary Views of the Manager's Job. 3. Some Distinguishing Characteristics of Managerial Work. 4. The Manager's Working Roles. 5. Variations in Managers' Work. 6. Science and the Manager's Job. 7. The Future of Managerial Work. Appendix A: Major Studies of the Manager's Job. Appendix B: Seven Research Methods Used to Study Managerial Work. Appendix C: A Study of the Work of Five Chief Executives.
5,385 citations