Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
2 Business and IT Alignment from a Socio-technical Viewpoint
The relationship between business and IT in organisations has a socio-technical aspect
that can be viewed via socio-technical theory. Socio-technical theory is a set of ex-
plicit concepts that considers the complex interaction of the social aspects, which
influence the usability and functionality of technology capabilities [12],[13],[14].The
social aspects such as the behavioural patterns of the stakeholders involved are one of
the important factors that impact the effectiveness of the technology that supports the
business in an organisation [15]. However, the associated mapping and representation
of the socio-technical aspects of the organisation is difficult in practice [16],[17],
particularly to achieve business and IT alignment.
One approach to achieve business and IT alignment is through enterprise architec-
ture frameworks (EAF) [18],[19] often using service oriented architecture (SOA). The
Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF), aims to establish a proper alignment
between the organisation's business strategy and IT capabilities in a well-structured,
comprehensive and systematic manner [20]. Work done in [21] highlights how TO-
GAF can assist an enterprise to develop a new alignment between business and IT, or
improve the existing alignment through the Architecture Development Model (ADM)
life cycle. The emergence of SOA concepts has influenced a paradigm shift in busi-
ness thinking where business components can be viewed as services [22],[23],[24].
Subsequently, these services can be assessed regarding the value they add to the prof-
itability and sustainability of the business. The adoption of SOA in business architec-
ture is beneficial as SOA concepts remove redundancies and align IT infrastructures
[25]. The ability to deconstruct business components and organisational structures
into sets of services behaving in a service-oriented manner, supports the enhancement
of EAF [26]. Yet, the integration of EAF and the SOA concept is not simple as SOA
is still considered as an immature technology with no specific foundational theory,
and this indirectly complicates the process of defining granular and reusable business
and IT services [22]. Work presented in [27],[28], illustrates the integration of EAF
and SOA concepts by establishing the linkage of the business services with IT
capabilities. However, these approaches focus more on business services than on IT
services performance. The availability of information on the IT services performance
is crucial to analyse the linkage between business and IT services.
The complexity of alignment is also raised by the fact that the business includes the
organisation of people, which cultivates social and cultural informalities. However,
accurate inclusion of the socio-cultural factors contributes to the success of the align-
ment as highlighted in [29],[16],[3],[17]. Work presented in [30] also recognizes the
importance to missing non explicit stakeholder social information(s) in modeling
enterprise architecture. Lagerstrom et al . [4] address such factors by focusing on
stakeholders and their behaviour. However, there is no specific analysis for 1) how
stakeholders gain value from their involvement in the business activities and 2) their
important views of the value added, or otherwise, by various business services.
Cultural aspects have been recognised to fill the informal requirements gap in the
business and IT alignment. A study has shown that 30% of companies have failed in
their attempt to achieve business and IT alignment [2]. The main problem highlighted
is the miscommunication between business and IT caused by unclear specification
of the organisation's business and IT requirements. Business and IT should have a
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