Information Technology Reference
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the following features: focus on business strategy, pragmatic versus methodological
planning approaches, project prioritization, greater business involvement in ICT
development, and improved planning of ICT infrastructure and capabilities.
7.3 the Dynamic Features of Strategic Alignment
For more than three decades now, strategic alignment has persistently shown to be
highly ranked as a key issue for ICT management (Caffrey & McDonagh, 2009).
Accordingly, it is considered to be an important contemporary ICT management
issue. The strategic alignment dilemma for business leaders and ICT executives
worldwide has proven to be a “long-standing pervasive conundrum” (Luftman &
Ben-Zvi, 2010a, p. 265). A good deal of empirical inquiry has studied the strategic
alignment construct in order to gain a better understanding of its meaning, the
embedded constraints, and performance-related benefits. Each of these aspects is
discussed more fully next.
7.3.1 Definition
Over time, the concept of strategic alignment has been variously defined. According
to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, strategic alignment is based on “the
premise that the inability of organizations to realize value from IS (information
systems)/IT investments is, in part, due to lack of alignment between business and
IS/IT strategies” (Ward & Peppard, 2002, p. 44). An adequate definition for stra-
tegic alignment is often vague (Maes, Rijsenbrij, Truijens, & Goedvolk, 2000).
It was noted by Silvius (2009) that in over 1 million Google search hits, a sound
definition is challenging to find. Nevertheless, over the last two decades, meaning-
ful attempts have been made to define the construct. These have included creating
a strategic fit between “business strategy, information technology strategy, organi-
zational infrastructure and processes, and information technology infrastructure
and processes” (Henderson & Venkatraman, 1993, p. 4). It is concerned with “the
degree to which the IT mission, objectives, and plans support and are supported
by the business mission, objectives and plans” (Reich & Benbasat, 1996, p. 56). It
was shown to be the task of “applying IT in an appropriate and timely way and in
harmony with business strategies, goals, and needs” (Luftman & Brier, 1999, p. 109).
Strategic alignment “is the business and IT working together to reach a common
goal” (Campbell, Kay & Avison, 2005, p. 662). It is also considered to be “the
degree to which the IT application portfolio converges with business strategies”
(Oh & Pinsonneault, 2007, p. 244). Each of the above is, in one way or another,
based on the perspective posited by Edwards (1994, p. 51) insofar as strategic align-
ment generally refers to “congruence, match, agreement, or similarity between two
conceptually distinct constructs.” This concept was clearly rooted in the work of
Nadler and Tushman (1980), whereby “the degree to which the needs, demands,
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