domain knowledge IT implementation success Communication between business and IT executives Connections between business and IT planning Short-term alignment business directionShort-term
Trang 1Table 10.6 Processes and events influencing short-term alignment within BU 4
1969–1987 Career path of head of systems for BU 4: 18 years in corporate IT For 7 years before
he joined the BU, he developed mainframe systems for BU 4.
Result:IT head has a good knowledge of mainframe investment systems, but has no line experience.
1982–1987 BU 4 executives are not involved in the IT projects, spend some time in developing
PC-based systems for analysis of investment options.
Result: BU 4 executives are more conversant with
PC technology, have little large systems experience.
1987 IT group is decentralized into investment business unit from corporate IT First IT
event is a demonstration of new mainframe transactions and algorithms Not much
interest is shown in this.
Result:Executives see no reason to talk to IT people, no channels are created Head of systems does not sit on the management team.
1988–1990 Two IT Initiatives are commenced: a giant asset-matching mainframe system and an
Executive IS The EIS had mixed support and was cancelled when the champion was
transferred The mainframe system was starved of resources and made little progress.
Reason:Executives have no experience in championing large projects IT director has no access to executives, no real understanding of the workings of the BU.
1990–1992 During the project, IT cannot communicate with line managers As a line VP
remembers: ‘we hear a lot about it [the big systems project], we don’t see very much.
We know it’s been delayed, we know it’s overrun on costs, we don’t know what the
problems are, we’ve had people try to explain them to us, and never understood it all.
Most times, when systems people come in to explain something, the tendency is to
lapse into the jargon and it just whew! right over our heads And you tend to
fall asleep in the process So you say, well, it must be working, somebody says it’s
going to come together, and I guess we’ll find out.
Reason:No shared language has been established;
no trust exists between the line and IT.
Result: The project lurches along Budget was
originally $1 million, expenses are at $7 million, projected to double IT is isolated within the BU.
‘There’s an overall reputation an IT project takes twice as long and costs twice as much, and never does what it’s supposed to do which is a real bad reputation.
By 1992 Very low level of mutual understanding of objectives (short-term alignment) ‘Right
now, the responsibility is all on him [the head of systems] to do a mind read of
everybody, do it in a way that somehow sees something that the other guy doesn’t even
know exists, and comes up with the right answer Impossible But we sit back as
management and say, ‘You systems people, boy.’ It’s kind of a no-win situation.’
Reason:Low levels of shared knowledge has led
to low levels of IT implementation success and low levels of alignment.
Trang 2288 Strategic Information Management
project,’ everyone says, ‘Those systems people screwed up again And you can just shift the whole blame off to the other guy He’s not even in the meeting,
so you can really beat him about the head And everybody feels so much better after they’ve done that.
When interviewed, the executives exhibited very low levels of mutualunderstanding of objectives
BU 4 also exhibits very low connections between IT and business planning.This could be interpreted as a result of the low level of shared domainknowledge or the lack of IT success However, a wider appraisal of BU 4planning practices reveals that very few strategy meetings of any type are held
in BU 4 Budgets are discussed, strategies are not Therefore, what initiallylooks like strong confirmation of the model is an artifact of the absence of aplanning culture within BU 4
The strongest influences in this business unit seem to be from the lack ofshared knowledge between the IT and the business managers They cannotspeak each other’s language and, as a result, leadership is abdicated and ITprojects fall IT managers are kept out of the decision-making loop with theresult that no shared understanding is created
Business Units 9 and 10: contingent findings
BUs 9 and 10 exhibited mixed support for the model and were investigatedfurther to try to determine the causalities within them
In BU 9, the interest was in what impact a low level of IT implementationsuccess had on an otherwise successful organization, since the modelsuggested that such a lack might inhibit alignment The analysis revealed thatthe very high level of shared domain knowledge among executives hadresulted in opening up many channels of communication between them The
vice president was committed to information technology (IT is the competitive advantage in our business I am a complete believer that technology can radically change the cost structure and the way we do work) Even though the
recent implementations had been only partially successful, their mutualrespect and belief in IT had led them to a redoubling of efforts rather than apulling away from IT or a deterioration in communication When interviewed,
BU 9 executives exhibited a high level of mutual understanding of objectives.The conclusion was that the high level of shared domain knowledge hadmitigated the expected influence of poor IT implementation success Thisfinding is shown on Figure 10.3 with a dotted line
BU 10 was an opposite case (low shared domain knowledge, high ITsuccess, high level of mutual understanding of objectives), and an investiga-tion was undertaken to determine the effect of his low shared domainknowledge The peculiarity of this case was in the nature of its IT history.Within this small business unit, both business managers and IT people had
Trang 3domain
knowledge
IT implementation success
Communication
between business
and IT executives
Connections between business and IT planning
Short-term alignment business directionShort-term
Measuring the Information Systems–Business Strategy Relationship 289
worked for the last five years to implement PC-based technology in directcontravention of corporate IT policy They had the first local area network inthis large organization and used it very successfully for production systemsand low-cost local e-mail This and other accomplishments seemed to havebound the IT and line people together into a highly cohesive team.Unfortunately, the method of rating shared domain knowledge as cross-functional experience used in this study seemed to be too restrictive for thisbusiness unit because their very close cooperation on projects over a longperiod of time had imbued both the head of the business unit and the ITmanager with a deep understanding of each others’ domain A more holisticscale for shared domain knowledge might have resulted in a different score.Therefore, the finding from this business unit was that the scale for shareddomain knowledge should reflect long-term working relationships as well asjob transfers
Business Unit 3: a lack of business direction
The previous discussion developed the argument that a high level of shareddomain knowledge or a high level of IT implementation success would leadbusiness units to high levels of communication and, through this mechanism,
to high levels of short-term alignment BU 3 is an anomaly to this argument,
in that it displays high or moderate levels of the preconditions, but low levels
of short-term alignment
BU 3 was a newly created business unit and was just in the process offormulating a set of one to two year objectives When questioned, executivescould not articulate these, thereby achieving a low rating on short-termalignment Consideration was given to eliminating BU 3 from the data setbecause it was younger than the other business units and therefore might
Figure 10.3 Explanatory model for short-term alignment
Trang 4290 Strategic Information Management
contaminate the findings However, the belief is that there are more reasonsthan age that could create the situation of unarticulated short-term businessplans (for example, a recent industry ‘shock’ or a recent negative shift inorganizational fortunes) In these cases, the business units might be of matureage but not exhibit any short-term alignment because of a lack of short-term
objectives The existence of a short-term business direction was therefore added to the model (see Figure 10.3) This direction would consist of a set of
one to two year objectives, either found in written plans or articulated bymanagement This is believed to be a necessary precondition for short-termalignment
Conclusions: short-term alignment
When the data were analyzed within each business unit shown in Table 10.4,the strongest resulting explanatory model contained five influential elements:shared domain knowledge, IT implementation success, communication,connections in planning and short-term business direction The relationshipssuggested by the data are shown in Figure 10.3
Apart from the prerequisite factor of a short-term business direction, thebiggest distinction found between business units with high and low levels ofshort-term alignment was the frequency of structured and unstructuredcommunication between IT and line executives The conclusion was that, overtime, executives in a business unit create the kind of communicationsenvironment that is comfortable for them Those who are respected are able toget involved in activities that are well outside their sphere of influence Thosewho are not respected tend to get left out, either by not being invited ontosenior committees or by not being involved in discussions about importantbusiness issues
How do IT people gain admission to cross-functional committees andinformal discussions? From BUs 1 and 4, it can be seen that two factors,shared domain knowledge and IT implementation success, can interact toproduce high or low levels of communication From BU 9 and 10, theconclusion is that having both a high level of IT implementation success and
a high level of shared domain knowledge may not be necessary for high levels
of communication It seems that high levels of either can result in high levels
of communication, and through this mechanism, lead to high levels of term alignment Further, it seems that very high levels of shared domainknowledge can compensate for the expected influence of a low level of ITimplementation success
short-The connections in the planning construct had a moderate influence onshort-term alignment, but no strong evidence could be found that planningpractices were influenced by shared domain knowledge or IT implementationsuccess Contrary to communication patterns, which resulted from a mix of
Trang 5Measuring the Information Systems–Business Strategy Relationship 291
organizational and individual preferences, connections in planning seemed toreflect only organizational practices In other words, if a shared planningprocess existed between IT and the line, one would also expect to find sharedplanning between most other units in the organization If no planning processwas found in IT, most likely there would be little planning done in thebusiness units The problems encountered in measuring and gauging theinfluence of this construct will be further discussed in the long-term alignmentsection
Long-term alignment
Three business units (1, 3, and 5), were rated as having a high and three (4,
6, and 10) as having a very low level of long-term alignment (i.e no vision).Data on the constructs in the research model are shown in Table 10.7 Highvalues are unshaded, moderate values are bold and italicized, and low valuesare bold, italicized, and have heavy borders
As can be seen from an examination of the data, there is some generalsupport for the model, but only the shared domain knowledge constructunambiguously distinguishes the high achievers from low achievers increating a shared vision for IT The data from each business unit wereexamined to look for evidence of causality
Since the history of BU 1 and BU 4 was discussed earlier in the context ofshort-term alignment, only aspects that relate directly to long-term alignmentwill be examined here BUs 5 and 6, which showed only partial support for themodel, will then be discussed and conclusions drawn BUs 3 and 10 are notdiscussed since their stories support the model
Before beginning the discussion about long-term alignment, it should benoted that the respondents in business units with a high level of long-termalignment were not aware of or could not communicate exactly when their ITvision had been formed, it seemed to be just an accepted fact that they wouldspend most of their IT development resources in one part of their business Noinsight was found about a particular time, either during a planning session or
a senior management meeting, when the strategy was created
Causal analysis of Business Unit 1
BU 1’s long-term vision for IT was to concentrate on empowering thesalespeople with information analysis tools, and the ability to completetransactions at the customer’s site Implementation of this sales system wouldmake the company a world leader in individual life sales processes Aninteresting aspect of this goal is that it focused on only the major parts of the
organization (sales; new business) of which the VP of IT was not in charge (he
was also the VP of administration)
Trang 6Table 10.7 Factors for BUs with ‘High’ or ‘No Vision’ Ratings on Long-term Alignment (high values are shown in normal font, moderate values in bold italics, and low values in bold italics inside heavy borders.)
Alignment, BU Communication Connections in planning Shared domain knowledge IT implementation success
HIGH
BU 1
Two days of executive meetings
per month, two other
cross-functional teams IT people visit
each sales branch several times/
year.
All projects, including IT, are discussed and voted on at the same meeting.
IT VP has 10 years line experience Five administrative managers are ex-IT people.
Leader in use of IT in sales, stable administrative backbone
in place.
HIGH
BU 3
Six frequently-held-meetings
permanent teams include both
IT and line managers.
IT director is in charge of business planning Tight connections between all areas.
Most line executives have managed IT projects One IT executive has line experience.
This young BU has mixed success to date.
HIGH
BU 5
One permanent team with IT
and line executives Lots of
direct contact between SVP and
IT executives.
IT plans are derived from business plans No integrated planning or review.
SVP has Master’s in Computer Science; IT manager has line experience.
Implementation success has been very mixed, mainly negative.
NO
Vision
BU 6
Frequent contact between IT
manager and SVP IT executive
Although BU6 was successful
in the mid-1980s, their recent
IT projects have not been successful.
NO
Vision
BU 10
Two cross-functional teams.
High level of direct contact
between IT manager and
NO
Vision
BU 4
No regular meetings of
executives and IT director.
Each executive makes his/her own plan, submits only budgets for discussion.
IT manager is a career IT person; no line person has direct IT experience.
The EIS was discontinued; a large strategic IT project is two years late and 500% over budget.
Trang 7Measuring the Information Systems–Business Strategy Relationship 293
No evidence was found to suggest that the planning meetings within BU 1were the critical times at which the IT vision was formulated In fact, therewere no separate IT planning meetings At the business planning meetings,although the sales system project was thoroughly discussed and endorsed,vision did not appear to originate there
The construct that helped in understanding how they could have forged thisvision was communications Because the IT people were regularly visiting thesales offices (unlike IT people in most other insurance organizations in NorthAmerica) there seemed to have been a deep understanding formed within ITthat this area offered the most leverage to the business A dialogue had ensuedwith business executives about the exact nature of the support that wasrequired Over time, the ideas become more focused and clear and resulted in
a sales support vision that was taken to the planning meetings It has alreadybeen explained how the shared domain knowledge within IT and a high level
of IT implementation success influenced the communications process, so theytoo must be seen to influence long-term alignment, albeit indirectly.Therefore, for BU 1, all constructs in the model played a part, but theongoing communications between IT people and agency people generated andsustained the shared IT vision, our measure for long-term alignment
Causal analysis of Business Unit 4
Within BU 4 there were silos, in which each line executive was working inisolation and the IT director had no strong connection with any of them The
IT director’s previous experience was centered on the mainframe, whereas theline executives primarily used PC systems to analyze trading and investmentdata The IT and business executives were worlds apart The most recent ITstrategic plan, formulated three years before the interviews, was nevercirculated to management and only one of the four projects suggested in it wasactually pursued They had not identified a long-term business direction, so aconsultant had been hired to create one
It was no surprise to find a lack of vision about how IT might leverage thebusiness The findings suggested that executives within BU 4 were quiteuninformed about how IT could be used to improve their results Their currentstrategic business planning initiative did not include IT The conclusionreached was that this attitude, at least in part, was the result of a very low level
of shared domain knowledge and low levels of communication between ITand line management They had no way to get internal advice about IT and norespect for an IT director who did not understand their business
Business Unit 5: an unusual leader
Two other units, BU 5 and BU 6, are interesting in that they seem to refutemost of the assumptions inherent in the model In BU 5, most of the factors
Trang 8294 Strategic Information Management
are rated only moderate; however, the business unit was rated as having a highlevel of long-term alignment In BU 6, most of the factors were rated as beinghigh or moderate, however, the business unit was rated as having no vision.The analysis centered on two questions: (1) were any constructs in the originalmodel instrumental in explaining the results and (2) were there otherconstructs that might help in understanding the apparent anomalies?
In BU 5, there was a high level of agreement among executives about therole that IT could play in their future They needed better access to internaldata to support marketing decisions such as pricing and product features.However, the rating of the model elements (moderate levels of IT success,communication, and connections in planning) make this high level of ITvision interesting In analyzing the causal links within BU 5, it was found thatthe influence of the head of the business unit was stronger than the more
‘institutional’ factors represented in the model
This senior vice president had a Master’s degree in Computer Scienceand was, by far, the most IT-experienced senior executive within the sample
of ten business units Because of his strong computing background, he(unlike virtually all of his peers in the business units) was willing to set adirection for the IT part of the business and was very clear about how ITshould be used Because of the power of his position in the organization andthe level of his expertise, his views prevailed and required few formalcommunication channels or planning processes to entrench them as thedominant vision Therefore, an unusual level of shared domain knowledge(primarily in the senior line manager, although it was also present in the ITmanager) seemed to be the most important construct in explaining long-termalignment in BU 5
Business Unit 6: no long-term business direction
In BU 6, there was no agreement whatsoever about the future direction for IT.This was especially interesting because IT had made this business unit amarket leader in the early 1980s They had created an IT system to supporttheir insurance product and this system had helped them capture over 60% ofthe Canadian market Unfortunately, the makeup of the industry had changedsince then and several very strong competitors had copied the software, givenbetter price breaks to the customers, and taken away half of the market Theirattempt to regain competitive advantage through improved software hadfloundered because of a combination of poor project management and a lowlevel of customer adoption
When the BU 6 executives were interviewed, they were suffering a crisis ofconfidence Not only had their market share been slashed by competitors buttheir strategic weapon, information technology, had also failed to provide thepromise of recovery
Trang 9Shared domain knowledge
Long-term alignment business directionLong-term
Measuring the Information Systems–Business Strategy Relationship 295
So, although BU 6 had created strong communication links between ITand senior line managers, and their IT and business planning was highlyintegrated, these management processes had not yet shown them a way out
of their strategic dilemma The analysis concluded that low levels of success
in their IT implementation, coupled with a lack of long-term businessdirection, were the constructs which most strongly influenced their lack of
IT vision
Conclusion: long-term alignment
When the data were analyzed for each business unit within Table 10.7, thestrongest resulting explanatory model contained one influential element fromthe model: shared domain knowledge In addition, long-term businessdirection was added to the model as a necessary antecedent for long-termalignment Although communication was seen to be influential in BU 1, 3 and
4, there was less support for it in other business units and it was not included
in the model
In Figure 10.4, a heavy dotted line has been drawn between shared domainknowledge and long-term alignment The thickness of the line represents thestrength of the relationship, the dotted format represents the indirect nature ofthe relationship Although the belief is that there are intervening factorsbetween these two constructs, they were not discovered in this research There
is no strong evidence that a vision for IT is created through thecommunication events tracked In addition, no evidence could be found thatplanning processes actually contributed to the creation of an IT vision Theplanning processes seemed to be useful only for validation and funding oncethe vision had been created
Figure 10.4 Explanatory model for long-term alignment
Trang 10296 Strategic Information Management
Conclusions
Overall, substantial parts of the research model were corroborated for term alignment, one element proved to be influential in creating long-termalignment, and one new construct, existence of a business direction, emergedfrom the data In the next section, the findings are related back to previousresearch and new propositions are suggested A discussion of the limitations
short-of the study and implications for future research follows The chapterconcludes with recommendations for practitioners
Summary of results regarding short- and long-term alignment
In general, it was relatively easy to discover the influence of constructs on thecreation of short-term alignment Organizational stories, minutes frommeetings, respondents’ explanations, and the researchers’ interpretations oftenconverged to create plausible causal explanations The origin of the short-termbusiness or IT objectives could be traced and the meetings at which they werediscussed by IT and business executive identified How the level of shareddomain knowledge had influenced communication and the understanding that
IT and business executives displayed toward each other’s objectives, couldalso be explained
Such linkages were not apparent when it came to explaining the presence
or absence of long-term alignment The one construct that seemed to predictlong-term alignment was shared domain knowledge, but a causal explanationfor its influence was not found One significant issue was that how or when
IT visions were created could not be found Actions by individuals seemed tostrongly influence the creation and dissemination of vision, and vision itselfwas difficult for respondents to articulate, and difficult to measure Apart frommeasurement problems, it is possible that creation of a shared, long-termvision for IT would be better explained with process analysis rather thanfactor models The suspicion is that there are several paths to a shared ITvision and that a longitudinal, ethnographic study is required to illuminate theantecedents of this construct
The relationships between findings and prior empirical work are shown inTable 10.8
One observation was that IT implementation success cannot be used topredict the level of communication or connections in planning without takinginto account the level of shared domain knowledge A high level of shareddomain knowledge may moderate the expected negative influence of a lowlevel of IT implementation success on the other two factors
In simpler language, managers within a business unit with high levels ofshared domain knowledge understand and respect each others’ contributionand trust that each is giving their best effort Even in the presence of a
Trang 11Measuring the Information Systems–Business Strategy Relationship 297
seriously derailed major IT project, these units may exhibit high levels ofcommunication and short-term alignment In units without high levels of shareddomain knowledge, failed or failing IT projects result in finger-pointing,reduced levels of communication, and low levels of short-term alignment.Another conclusion was that planning practices are not predicted by intra-unit factors, such as shared domain knowledge or IT implementation success.They seem to be influenced by macro organizational level policies and, insome cases by senior individuals within business units Business and ITplanning processes seem to be events at which business direction is set, ITplans are discussed, and budgets are ratified While these events influenceshort-term alignment by getting the short-term objectives understood by all,and funded, they do not seem to play a role in the creation of an IT vision.Although a high level of shared domain knowledge in organizations withlong-term alignment was expected, there may be other, as yet unknown,factors that influence this outcome When we as researchers understand moreclearly how IT visions are created, these other factors could likely beidentified
Limitations and ideas for future research
There were several measurement problems associated with this study, themost notable being the measurement of connections in planning and IT vision.These issues are discussed below as well as the issue of generalizability andfuture research investigating shared domain knowledge In addition, futureresearchers should investigate the notions of ‘trust’ and ‘commitment’ thatthis study was unable to pursue
Connections between business and IT planning
A measurement problem inhibited the full investigation of the relationshipsbetween connections in planning and other constructs Of the ten businessunits rated, six had a ‘derived’ level of connection between IT and businessplanning, meaning that their IT plans were derived from their business plans.This rating did not differentiate between proactive and reactive planners at thebusiness level or the IT level and units with very different potential for long-term alignment were grouped together For example, one unit, which wasexecuting IT projects based on an eight-year-old business plan, was rated thesame as another, which was executing a two-year-old business plan Quitepredictably, the former had a lower level of IT vision, but the planning scalecould not predict this difference
It may take different research approaches to determine the predictive power
of the planning construct For example, a large statistical study may determinethat the highest levels of connections in planning (i.e., integrated or proactive)
Trang 12Table 10.8 Summary of findings for each proposition and support literature
proposition
1 The level of communication
between business and IT
executives will influence the
level of alignment.
Supported
Anomaly: In one unit, there was no short-term business direction and therefore, no short-term alignment, regardless of a high level of communication.
Not supported
Two units with high levels of communication exhibited a ‘no vision’ rating on long-term alignment.
Cohen and Levinthal (1990); Rogers (1986); Clark and Fujimoto (1987); Zmud (1988); Lind and Zmud (1991); Littlejohn (1996)
2 The level of connection
between business and IT
planning processes will
influence the level of
alignment.
Supported
Anomaly: In one unit, there was no short-term business direction and therefore no short-term alignment regardless of a high level of connections in planning.
3a The level of shared domain
knowledge will influence the
With a recalibration of the measure,
to include an individual with both
IT and business skills, the proposition was supported.
Weak support
The relationship between shared domain knowledge and long-term alignment was strong, but the influence of intermediate constructs
is unknown.
Cohen and Levinthal (1990); Henderson (1990); Dougherty (1992); Boynton et al (1994); Rockart et al (1996); indirectly predicted by Nelson and Cooprider (1996)
Trang 13Table 10.8 Continued
proposition
3b The level of shared domain
knowledge will influence the
level of connections between
business and IT planning
processes.
Not supported
Although there was strong correlation between these two constructs, the conclusion was that planning processes reflected organization-wide policies rather than factors within the business units studied.
Not supported
Same reasoning as with short-term alignment.
Same as above
4a Success in IT implementation
will influence communication
between business and IT
executives.
Generally supported
Anomaly: In two units, the presence
of a high level of shared domain knowledge seemed to moderate the influence of a negative IT history.
Not supported Indirectly predicted by Lucas
(1975); Senn (1978); Brown (1991); Rockart et al (1996)
4b Success in IT implementation
will directly influence
connection between business
and IT planning processes.
Not supported
Planning processes seemed to reflect organization-wide policy rather than factors within the business unit.
Not supported
Same reasoning as with short-term alignment.
Same as above
Trang 14300 Strategic Information Management
will predict long-term alignment Alternatively, a scale with finer gradationsmay provide the differentiation needed to identify causality With alongitudinal study, researchers may be able to assess if IT was leading, insynch, or lagging behind the strategic business planning process (Applegate1993) Cross-sectional studies or those that focus on a limited duration maynot identify the influence of business and IT planning practices on the creation
of IT vision
IT vision
After this study, when or where IT visions are cannot be identified and only
a vague idea exists of how visions are nurtured and refined over time To theextent that the study could find any origins for IT visions, they seemed to becreated in one of two ways: either through sustained communication between
a group of IT and business executives or by fiat from a senior business personwith IT credibility A future study that looked only at the creation of IT visioncould pay more attention to both processes and individuals Differentmethodologies such as long-term participant observation or a large surveycould be tried to see if the process of creating vision or the factors thataccompany it can be identified In addition, it will be important to carefullyidentify the characteristics of an IT vision in order to interview or surveyrespondents
Generalizability*
Because the ten business units in this study shared certain characteristics, noinsights were developed about their influence One such characteristic is thelocation of the IT function All of the business units had an IT group that waslocated within the unit This study, therefore, investigated the alignmentbetween a business unit IT group and the business unit executives No insightswere created about alignment between corporate IT and business unitexecutives
All of the units were located in companies within the insurance industry.These companies wanted very much to use IT to its fullest potential and,therefore, the findings cannot easily be related to an organization that treats IT
as a minor element in their strategy
The insurance industry itself may cause generalizability issues in that it was
in a state of flux with profits coming under pressure and units trying to updatebusiness practices and respond to competitive pressures A study done in a
* Some researchers (e.g., Numagami 1998) believe that the issue of generalizability or external validity is not a relevant criterion for case study or interpretive research.
Trang 15Measuring the Information Systems–Business Strategy Relationship 301
stable environment may produce slightly different results, especially withrespect to the effect of planning processes
As mentioned in the findings, it was not possible to determine the weight
of influence of each construct, nor was it possible to identify more than a fewinteractions between constructs The suspicion is that there are recursiverelationships left undiscovered Another suspicion is that there are more thanone collection of factors which will predict alignment It will take largersurveys to explore more complex relationships
However, to the extent that business units share the common characteristics
of units in this study, these findings should hold across other industries and inlarger or smaller units To the extent that communication is a characteristic ofculture, the importance of communication may or may not hold in studies ofother cultures
Since shared domain knowledge proved to be a very influential antecedent
to communication and alignment, more research is needed to investigate theways in which shared domain knowledge is created For example, can weidentify at the time of initial hire the people who will become the innovators
in an organization? Can we create knowledge through steering committees,job rotation, and elaborate planning processes?
Recommendations for practitioners
The most important direct predictor of alignment in this study was a high level
of communication between IT and business executives However, one cannotmandate meaningful communication between individuals IT people have toearn the right to play a meaningful role in management forums Based onfindings from this study, one important way for an IT person to be heard is forhim/her to devote the time necessary to develop shared domain knowledge,the most influential construct in the research model An IT person needs tounderstand the leverage points of the industry, the history and current issues
of the business units, and to learn to apply ‘common sense’ in the application
of technology to business problems This change in view would help focustheir attention on those technologies and ideas that could produce the mostbenefit, rather than those that offer the most technical promise
Creating an environment in which shared domain knowledge can grow mayentail actions such as physically moving IT people into business units, makingindustry (i.e., non-IT) reading, course work, and conference attendancemandatory, and sending IT people on regular trips to visit sales offices and
customers (Reich, et al., 1997) Systems analysts can be encouraged to follow
their applications into line areas, either temporarily or permanently Otherapproaches would include bringing non-IT people into senior IT roles orhiring junior analysts with a broad education All of these activities would bedesigned to change first the behaviors and second the attitudes of IT
Trang 16302 Strategic Information Management
professionals toward the needs and the priorities of the business Changes inhiring practices, assignments, and rewards must be put in place to reinforcethe message that IT is an integral part of the business
Line managers who have a deep knowledge both of the core business andapplications of IT are the catalysts around which IT innovations seem tooccur In organizations where IT is critical to success, managers should beexpected to exert the same influence over IT projects as they do overmarketing and new product development Organizations must recognize that
IT knowledge is a ‘core competence’ (Prahalad and Hamel, 1990) formanagers; therefore, management training programs should include a one ortwo year tour of duty working on a large IT project This experience willdevelop in young managers one of the two dimensions of IT knowledgeidentified in this study: the ability to implement an important IT project Theother aspect – awareness of new information technology – can be fostered byattendance at IT presentations Over time, the level of IT competence withinthe organization will grow, enabling most managers to participate fully in ITdecision making
Keil (1995) identified three resource-oriented reasons to avoid escalatingcommitment to a failed project This study has shown that failure in ITimplementation affects more than resources: it affects alignment, possibly byinfluencing confidence, trust, and risk-taking Post-implementation reviews,which are seen by many as an exercise in retribution, should be viewed as anopportunity to create a shared learning about the positive and negative results
of an IT project and help people to move past bad experiences by learningfrom them (Senge, 1990)
In the analysis of IT planning practices, one conclusion was drawn aboutthe way in which connections in IT and business planning can be optimized
Planning processes that have a connection event (e.g., a meeting at which all
projects, both business and IT, are prioritized), plus a regular re-evaluation ofpriorities are influential in ensuring high levels of short-term alignment ofobjectives Top-down, or derived planning processes, are only adequate inbusiness units with clear, unambiguous business objectives
The importance of regular communication between IT and businessexecutives cannot be overemphasized Organizations must realize, however,that without some background of shared domain knowledge or shared beliefs,mechanisms such as IT steering committees may degrade into project review
or budget approval committees A strategic focus should be forged early inthese committees, even though this process may reveal conflicting viewsabout the role of IT within the company Data from this study suggest asteering committee that isolates IT discussion from other organizational issuesmay be counterproductive and could act to lower the level of alignment
In general, there are few ‘quick fixes’ emerging from this study Like anyother core competence IT proficiency within an organization takes time to
Trang 17Measuring the Information Systems–Business Strategy Relationship 303
develop Management must act with deliberation and consistency over asignificant period of time to develop the background for achievingalignment
Acknowledgements
The authors are very grateful for financial support from the University ofBritish Columbia HSS Research Grants program
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Appendix A: Measuring alignment
The scale used for measuring short-term alignment has four levels: high,moderate, low and unknown, as shown in the following table
to list IT objectives:
Head of business unit: ‘Objectives are GOLD, BEN-NET The head of IT may have his own objectives, like productivity.’
VP, finance: ‘Bring GOLD in BEN-NET Development Productivity
VP, marketing: ‘GOLD – realize benefits More Productive Systems Development.’
Head of IT: ‘GOLD, BEN-NET I also have productivity initiatives underway.’
Another example of clear understanding of IT objectivesexhibited by a business unit head:
‘Her strategies, you mean her goals? The main one is to get the Ceded Reinsurance admin system in by July 1 on budget And then the other one is to get the Received Reinsurance system in it probably won’t be in by the end of this year, but to make enough progress so that it can be in by next year.’
Moderate (IT
or Business)
The IT and business executives have only a generalunderstanding of each other’s current objectives butcannot identify specific, high-priority ones