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Purpose Though prior studies have attempted to explore the various effects of managing information technology (IT) investment on firm performance, the mechanism through which management of IT impact on firm performance rests less clear. The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of managing IT and business-IT alignment on firm performance. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on the resource-based theory and process theory, this study examines how managing IT impacts business-IT alignment and firm performance. The primary survey of 182 responses from IT and business managers from Sri Lanka was empirically examined. Findings The findings reveal that managing IT has a positive and strong impact on business-IT alignment and firm performance. Further, business-IT alignment partially mediates between managing IT investment and firm performance relationships. Research limitations/implications Today, businesses have invested a massive amount of money in IT investment, and the return on this investment is always a serious concern for managers and industry practitioners. This study finding proposes meaningful insights on managing IT, business-IT alignment and firm performance. Originality/value This study opens up the black box on the above nomological linkage and contributes to the literature by extending the theoretical lenses while suggesting insightful and practical implications.

Over the last decades, the role of the IT department within an organization has gradually gained importance. Technology has permeated all areas within organizations and nowadays is the cornerstone of almost all business processes. Thus, business-IT alignment (BITA) is considered an essential success factor for almost any organization. Consequently, the evaluation and improvement of this alignment have been a growing concern among researchers and organizations. This study assessed the BITA maturity in a Colombian university, applying Luftman’s SAM (Strategic Alignment Maturity) model. The conducted assessment collected, analyzed, and contrasted perceptions of business and IT personnel. Similarly, we investigated the personnel’s perceptions at the strategic, functional, and operational levels regarding the SAM factors. Furthermore, we compared our results with other BITA assessments in educational institutions, Latin American organizations, and worldwide results. Finally, we drew some conclusions that can be useful for practitioners who seek to apply Luftman’s assessment.

The COVID-19 pandemic has evolved into a multi-faceted global crisis with massive challenges for any organization around the world. With lockdowns and other social distancing protocols implemented in countries worldwide, economic activities and social interactions become increasingly reliant on technology. This study aimed to examine the intervention role of business-IT alignment on the influence of IT governance (ITG) and IT application orchestration capability (IT-AOC) on organization performances. The educational sector was chosen as an object of study as this sector will experience a decade of radical technology-driven change due to COVID-19's stimulus and there were limited IT-AOC studies that used this sector as a research object. This study use a survey method and purposive sampling with a total classified sample of 55 higher education institutions (HEIs) and 110 respondents involved represent the samples. Data analysis was conducted using a Variance-Based Structural Equation Modeling (VB-SEM) approach of Partial Least Square (PLS) technique. The results suggest that both ITG and IT-AOC have a positive effect on organization performances. Moreover, this study proved that business-IT alignment can intervene the influence of ITG and IT-AOC on organization performances.

This paper aims to test an artificial model and a calculator the author developed based on deep learning, Neural Networks, and machine learning, Random Forest. The “Diab BITA Model” and the “Diab Calculator” are generated to enable organizations, of any size and in any industry, of calculating the value of Strategic Business-IT Alignment (BITA) following a scale of 7 degrees. Principally, the same sample of one of his previous papers is addressed in which top managers subjectively assessed the BITA maturity; the current paper targets to empirically prove the accuracy of managers’ perceptions using both the model and the calculator. Findings show an 89% accuracy rate in estimating those organizations’ BITA levels using the model and 92% using the calculator.

The firm’s effective alignment of Information Communication Technology (ICT) capabilities with the SME’s business process to achieve agile communication strategies will distinguish profitable and failing firms in this global market milieu. The paper examined SMEs’ communication strategies in South Africa and Nigeria by evaluating their ability to align business and IT to promote innovation and competitive edge in their operations. Quantitative data from 230 SMEs in Nigeria and South Africa were presented. The findings indicated that the business manager’s knowledge of IT understanding is limited (= .29), the effectiveness of IT and business liaison and cooperation (= .30), and the dynamic of IT-based decision-making (= .33), and the SME’s knowledge sharing experiences through organization learning (= –.07). These findings showed a lack of communication effectiveness due to the inability to align ICT capabilities with the SME’s communications strategies. Similarly, an inverse correlation between communication and ICT infrastructure (–.26); between communication and skill (–.32); between communication and business and IT governance (–.71); between communication and ICT value that the SMEs derived from their use of information communication technology (–.78) due to lack of business and IT alignment. The paper recommends that SMEs must not rely on the acquisition of ICT infrastructure but must ensure its integration with their business processes. AcknowledgmentThe financial assistance of the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences- Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (NIHSS-CODESRIA) towards this research is hereby acknowledged. Opinions expressed and conclusions are those of the author and are not necessarily to be attributed to the NIHSS- CODESRIA.

Business-IT Alignment (BITA) remains a challenging endeavour for many organisations despite the continuous attention it garnered among researchers and practitioners. The literature provides a list of factors determining whether organisations succeed to achieve BITA or not. However, BITA studies were conducted in a few industries in developed countries. This case study is aimed at addressing the lack of BITA studies in developing countries. The data was collected from a bank in Ethiopia through interviews and internal documents. The study employed thematic analysis, which revealed 21 intra-organisational barriers to BITA. Business and IT leaders may find the result of the study invaluable to plan activities that might overcome these barriers and improve BITA maturity, which in turn improves overall organisational performance.

The potential of Industry 4.0 concept is represented by increased productivity, improved cost efficiency, or higher product attractiveness. The adoption of this concept is related to a high number of challenges and risks. A possible solution to address these challenges and risks is the adoption or implementation of this concept using the maturity models. The maturity models use various approaches to Industry 4.0 with concepts and procedures varying in every maturity model. However, there still exist divergences in terms of their impact on the organizational units. This research conducts the comparative analysis of significant maturity models to identify generally shared traits of Industry 4.0 that are common to the majority of the analyzed maturity models. In addition, it discusses the impact of Industry 4.0 on the business informatics unit in organizations.

Business-IT alignment (BITA) continues to be a top management concern for the last ten years. Moreover, organizations mangers are still looking to understand the barriers between the status of alignment and misalignment. The barriers in BITA differ from a business area to another and particularly the authors have not found any research studies concerning the barriers in BITA in the manufacturing area in Sweden. Therefore, the research question is: What are the strategic, tactical, and operational barriers in business-IT alignment in a large company in manufacturing area? The research strategy is case study, and the data was collected through semi-structured interviews and also from company's internal documents and it was analyzed using thematic analysis. The findings of this study are a number of thirty barriers in BITA that includes six new barriers in BITA at operational, tactical and strategic level.

The social dimension of alignment plays an important role in business-IT alignment (BITA). The study aimed to get in-depth knowledge of barriers in BITA by identifying and analyzing factors that inhibit alignment from the social perspective using as case study the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (MEMR) of the Republic of Indonesia. Based on the data collected through semi-structured interviews and internal documents from this public organization in Indonesia, the data was thematic analyzed. The findings of the study are 15 social barriers in BITA in MEMR from which the following five are new social barriers in BITA: uncoordinated IT initiatives; sectoral ego; frequent rotation of executives in organizational structure; poor understanding of IT for growing; and the lack of support by the business in IT initiatives continuation. The findings of the study can be considered by other public organizations that aim to improve their alignment between business and IT, and finally their public service delivery.

PurposeAdvanced Electronic Medical Records (EMR) provide many potential benefits to hospitals. However, because of their broad scope, many stakeholders deal with the EMR and a continuous effort has to be made to keep up with internal and external change. Therefore, hospitals need to deliberately shape their organizational competencies considering the pursuit of alignment, i.e. making sure that the EMR remains optimally aligned with strategies, goals and needs of the hospital and its stakeholders. This paper aims to investigate the evolutionary paths of these alignment competencies and their drivers, from a theoretical perspective of co-evolutionary information systems alignment (COISA).Design/methodology/approachThis paper reports on a longitudinal multiple case study of three Dutch hospitals which each recently implemented an advanced EMR system. The authors conducted 35 in-depth interviews in 2 phases (before and after go-live of the EMR), and studied documentation related to the EMR implementations.FindingsThe findings show that each hospital's COISA capability shows a different evolutionary path. However, two of the three case hospitals ended up coordinating part of their COISA capability to an ecosystem level, i.e. they incorporated other hospitals using the same EMR system to coordinate their alignment efforts, either from an operational perspective, or in terms of orchestration and strategy. The found evolutionary paths' key drivers include “stakeholder initiative”, “accumulating experience”, “driving events” and “emerging issues”.Originality/valueThe findings help healthcare practitioners to deliberately shape their organization's COISA capability in pursuit of EMR alignment. Furthermore, the authors add to the knowledge base on co-evolutionary approaches to alignment through the longitudinal approach.

Many organisations around the world have faced misalignment in attaining the alignment between business and IT. The positive effect of alignment on overall company success has been focused on previous research. On the other hand, the misalignment in the implementation of a balanced scorecard was primarily unexplored. This study aimed at identifying and evaluating the factors that contribute to a misalignment of businesses and IT. The case study methodology is conducted in two state-owned telecommunication companies in Indonesia. The telecommunication industry’s selection as the case study is because of their nature closely related to technology development and implementation. Five semi-structured interviews, field notes and business records are used to produce the data, which have been thematically analysed and further follow by cross-case analysis to compare the thematic analysis result from each company. This study has resulted in 12 factors of misalignment between business and IT that can inhibit achieving alignment in implementing a balanced scorecard. The main findings showed that human factors, enterprise architecture, and IT project implementation factors could be three main source themes that can potentially contribute to misalignment. The findings may allow researchers to devise frameworks for how misalignments can be minimised to align business and IT better. This finding also useful in practice for companies that are seeking to achieve business-IT alignment by focusing on human factors, enterprise architecture factors, and IT project implementation factors.

Purpose This paper aims to present a dynamic model based on casual relationships among the most important effective factors on business–IT alignment in Agile businesses by using system dynamics modeling approach. Design/methodology/approach To study the most important factors on agility and alignment, the data were collected by questionnaires filled by 201 experts and were analyzed by SPSS and PLS. Casual relationships among studied factors and efficiency coefficients of each factor were identified by fuzzy DEMATEL technique and analyzed by MATLAB and EXCELL. Finally, the dynamic model was plotted by VENSIM. Findings According to the results, only “learning IT capabilities” are the most important casual factor that has the highest influence on the other factors. “Business responding capabilities” take the highest effect from the system, and “business sensing capabilities” are in the next rank. Practical implications This study underpins effective IT deployment toward developing efficient IT capabilities to gain greater agility. Originality/value The dynamic capabilities view (DCV) has emerged as an influential theoretical and management framework in modern IS and agility researches. In this regard, we propose a conceptualization of dynamic capabilities in the form of an alignment model. Based on the dynamic capabilities, and on the alignment perspectives found in Henderson and Venkatraman’s seminal model, IT alignment is modeled as a process of reconfiguration of the firm’s IT and organizational resources, competencies and capabilities.

Background: Information technology (IT) requires substantial investments from enterprises to build competitive capabilities. IT products are supposed to provide value to customers and to increase the competitiveness of enterprises. Vendors of IT products should take the competitive strategy and value creation for enterprise buyers into account. Objectives: This article takes the perspective of IT vendors (ITVs) and attempts to answer the research questions “What types of customer value do ITVs consider?” and “Do ITVs consider the competitiveness of enterprises?” Methods/Approach: This research investigates descriptions from ITVs and analyzes patterns and correlations of coded content. The annual reports of 32 global market-leading ITVs were examined through direct content analysis. Results: Half of the annual reports mention the competitiveness of enterprise buyers; 84% of the samples relate to customer-value disciplines. Moderate positive and monotonic relationships were detected between customer value disciplines. Conclusions: ITVs consider the competitiveness of buyers and noticeably regard customer value disciplines, mainly operational excellence, that in turn refers to process efficiency and cost-effectiveness.

Information technology (IT) has become a vital function, and almost all organizations depend on IT. The IT dependency causes the executives to use IT governance practices for the IT investment decision-making process. Organizations spend more on IT investments even those that are over budget, come under pressure, behind schedule, and are generating fewer paybacks than anticipated. Hence, business organizations are continuously examined and believed to be answerable for their IT investment more than ever. This chapter focuses on various IT governance and business-IT alignment frameworks, models, and best practices to discuss in this context.

Higher education institutions have typically a multifaceted mission. Besides their educational activities, they also aim to support research activities and provide collective services while ensuring that the institution breaks-even financially (as a non profit organization). These varying domains can actually be translated in a set of strategic objectives that need to be achieved in the long term. At the same time, new IT developments and projects can contribute to (or occasionally hamper) the realization of an institution’s strategy. Such IT developments suggest indeed new functions that could potentially support the individual achievement of one or many of the institution’s long-term strategic objectives. This article depicts a conceptual model evaluating the business and IT alignment of a Belgian university college from the French community with the assessment of the strategic fit of a new GDPR implementation (IT) project serving as case study. The purpose of the case is twofold as it aims to illustrate the generic strategy of this organization and to show secondarily how the alignment between the GDPR implementation project and that strategy can be identified, represented and evaluated. Finally, the case suggests that the realization of specific project objectives contributes positively to the realization of the university college’s broadly-based strategic objectives.

Nowadays Bachelor and Master Students in Management usually do not acquire deep knowledges in Information Technologies, Information Systems and Software Development during their curricular if their educational program is not directly related to Business Informatics. However, industrial experience shows that working in innovative companies requires managers being able not only to manage the business processes effectively, but also initiate changes to them in order to keep the companies stay ahead. Today in digital age corporative business processes are supported by Enterprise Information Systems. Therefore the need for hard skills in Information Systems (IS) is relevant for future managers. Another question is how deep these hard skills in IT should be. This paper discusses the results of implementing the course of the Enterprise Architecture (EA) in educational process of Bachelor students in Management with focus on Industrial Management (Field of study 38.03.02. Management, Educational program "Industrial Management (Energy)") and focus on Supply Chain Management (Field of study 38.03.02. Management, Educational program "Logistics and Supply Chain Management"). Archimate, Archi and generally TOGAF methodologies assisted the students in conducting their project work on changes in company IT infrastructure or during the hands-on exercise. The study was carried out at two Russian higher educational institutions (HEI) using the quantitative survey technique and data collection. The simplified framework of EA skills constituting the competency of business stakeholders is presented. General recommendation is that EA course can be effectively included in educational process of Bachelor Students in Management in order to develop EA skills that are significant for future managers and decision makers in digital environment. The results of the study contribute to curriculum choices, teaching methods and learning objectives in current educational process of future managers.

In recent years, the literature has emphasized theory building in the context of Enterprise Architecture (EA) research. Specifically, scholars tend to focus on EA-based capabilities that organize and deploy organization-specific resources to align strategic objectives with the technology&rsquo, s particular use. Despite the growth in EA studies, substantial gaps remain in the literature. The most substantial gaps are that the conceptualization of EA-based capabilities still lacks a firm base in theory and that there is limited empirical evidence on how EA-based capabilities drive business transformation and deliver benefits to the firm. Therefore, this study focuses on EA-based capabilities, using the dynamic capabilities view as a theoretical foundation, and develops and tests a new research model that explains how dynamic enterprise architecture capabilities lead to organizational benefits. The research model&rsquo, s hypotheses are tested using a dataset that contains responses from 299 CIO&rsquo, s, IT managers, and lead architects. Based on this study&rsquo, s outcomes, we contend that dynamic enterprise architecture capabilities positively enhance firms&rsquo, process innovation and business&ndash, IT alignment. These mediating forces are both positively associated with organizational benefits. The firms&rsquo, EA resources and specifically EA deployment practices are essential in cultivating dynamic enterprise architecture capabilities. This study advances our understanding of how to efficaciously de-lineate dynamic enterprise architecture capabilities in delivering benefits to the organization.

The ongoing digital transformation affects longstanding business models and creates opportunities for new ones. Business IT alignment plays a crucial role in this digital transformation. Enterprise architecture management (EAM) is designed to support and improve this alignment with the help of enterprise architecture (EA) models. With the introduction of new technologies such as the Internet of Things, companies are seeking new bundled or hybrid business models that combine services and products from different providers. Therefore, enterprises have to shift their focus on the management of business ecosystems. This study aims to provide a precise analysis of a practitioner’s perspective to evaluate the relevance and capabilities of inter-enterprise architecture (IEA) models for the management of business ecosystems. We surveyed 268 practitioners in the field of EAM. Our results show compelling insights concerning the relevance of IEA models for the management of business ecosystems. Our analysis outline advantages, challenges, and suggestions for improvement within the industry.

Enterprises are facing rapid and radical changes in a turbulent environment. This turbulence requires companies to be agile, i.e. to keep an overview of their environment and to be ready to react. Alignment Businesses IT is constantly being affected if levels of abstraction are affected by the change. The changes in companies must necessarily be accompanied by a (re)alignment of Business IT. In order to measure the impact of change on Business-IT alignment, this paper reviews the literature on agility metrics in different domains, by filtering them to focus on the context of Business-IT alignment, and then matching the metrics to the model that defines the impact of change on Business-IT alignment.

Not only companies, but also cities and public administrations are increasingly thinking about complementary and new digital business—and corresponding service models due to growing digital networking, smarter services, omnipresent access technologies, and dynamic customer requirements. Thus, the development and implementation of smart city technologies is a unique opportunity for cities of various sizes to make digital innovation potentials more usable for residents, visitors, and local businesses. This paper describes the application of the Digital Innovation and Transformation Process (DITP) in an urban environment, as it collects, analyzes, and evaluates digitalization goals, customer values, and actions of a small city, which focuses on digitalization in northern Germany and combines it with related research work within the area of digital services for smart cities. The investigation aims to analyze and focus the municipal governments’ intention for the digitization of urban space by using the first phase of the DITP. Possible business concepts and best practices were gathered and experiences from the use are used to improve DITP approach.

Nowadays, business IT alignment must remain absolutely scalable over time, be more effective and prepare to be agile to deal with environmental changes. These changes have an impact on the factors leading to a harmonic relationship between strategy and information technology (IT). However, business IT alignment is not easy to achieve and maintain. Therefore, it is essential to know the scope of the impact in the complete adaptation of alignment by making the relationships of the alignment elements ready to treat change as a critical discipline by choosing to make them fluid and agile. Over the literature, the research on the factor of change and strategic alignment to make a system agile and aligned is not overly developed. This lack has led us to propose a meta-model that formalizes change to make strategic alignment fluid and more agile by determining agility between abstraction levels including the relationship of business IT alignment domains.

Digitalization of information management has changed the archives sector in a short period of time and has significant implications for information processes within governmental organizations. In this article, the governance of such organizations is looked at from a business information technology (IT) alignment driven perspective, based on a case study conducted within two Dutch municipalities. The study shows that mature IT governance can have positive effects on digital document information management, because it leads to “desirable behavior in the use of IT.” Comparing the two municipalities, several findings become apparent. These concern effective management of input, for example through successful cooperation, and effective management of output of IT, for example by providing the needed digital services to citizens. Findings also are presented regarding the conjoint development of strategies by business and IT, mainly concerning the involvement of IT in decision making. Finally, findings su...

The purpose of this article is to portray the knowledge evolution paths of business-IT alignment (BITA) research and identify a set of important papers in the development of BITA, and elucidate the intellectual structure of this field. This study collected 309 papers published during the period 1983-2015 from the Web of Science (WOS) database. Using a variety of bibliometric and visualization analytic techniques such as citation analysis, co-citation analysis and main path analysis, this article (1) delineates the significant knowledge flows of BITA research and identifies 15 important papers in this field; (2) graphically maps the influential countries, institutions, and journals of BITA research; (3) identifies four major research themes: BITA model, measurement, antecedents, and dynamics, and visualizing the relationships among them. Based on these findings, recommendations for the future research directions have suggested. This article provides IT practitioners, executives, and scholars with a new perspective to get a better understanding of BITA.

Despite the long list of cumulative research, business-IT alignment remains to be evasive for practitioners and researchers. As organizations continue to spend a significant amount of their resources on IT to improve the variety and quality of services, achieving and maintaining business-IT alignment is a timely issue. Studies indicate that organizational structure, among other factors, plays an important role on whether organizations succeed in achieving business-IT alignment. A systematic literature review is conducted to provide an overview of previous studies as well as point out possible future research directions. A total of 31 articles were identified and included in the review. The findings indicate that there are few studies poised to address the lack of knowledge on how the formal/informal organizational structure's influence on business-IT alignment. The study presents a summary of previous findings on organizational structure's influence on business-IT alignment and identifies potential future research directions.

CanTel was one of the fastest growing Canadian telecommunications companies that provided telephone, cable, Internet, and cloud services. In 2015, the company employed over 40,000 employees and boasted of achieving over Cdn$10 billion of annual revenue and serving over 10 million customers. As a cloud service provider, the company faced a dilemma of not being able to fulfill the IT needs of its internal business units. As a result, one of the business units, Digital Channel, resorted to a third-party cloud service, and this set an example for other business units to follow suit. Jeff Smith, the CEO of the company CanTel, and the CIO Jane Lockhart had to find a solution to the issue that had significant implications to its business-IT alignment and IT governance.

Business-IT alignment (BITA) continues to attract the interest of researchers and practitioners. Literature review reveals that the focus of past studies was investigated BITA mostly at (1) strategic level, in (2) private and commercial organisations, and in (3) developed countries. Thus, making a generalisation from these findings is difficult. The current study is aimed at shading light on the barriers of BITA based on a case study in a public organisation like The Federal Inland Revenue Service of Nigeria. The data was collected through semi-structured email interviews from business and IT managers as well as IT officers and also from internal organisational documents too. The data collected has been analysed using thematic analysis and has revealed six BITA barriers at tactical and operational levels like previous IT failures, lack of feedback mechanism, organisational structure, lack of standard infrastructure, insufficient time to acquire knowledge, and poor communication between the mangers.

Because of the dynamic environments of business and IT, achieving any alignment between the two fields has become challenging. In view of its multiple viewpoints and artifacts, the discipline of enterprise architecture (EA) is often regarded as an effective methodology to deal with business-IT alignment (BITA) issues, and thus has attracted plenty of research. This article conducts a systematic literature review of BITA research using EA. Six questions are answered through 5W1H (When, Who, What, Why, Where, How) analysis; these questions aim to acquire a thorough understanding of BITA from the perspective of EA, to discover weak points in the status quo, and to identify future research directions.

The research examines the impact of IT governance on business-IT alignment and IT investment performance to achieve firm business value. IT investment is a essential part of a system of interrelated firm resources where the level of IT business value depends on the degree of systems fit or misfit. This study drawn on the related literature in IT governance, IT investment performance, business-IT alignment and firm business value. The sample of 34 commercial banks and telecommunication companies in Sri Lanka participated in this study. Accordingly, the findings of this study proved the proposed hypotheses are supported except hypothesis 3. Accordingly, the first hypothesis proved that the IT governance facilitates to create better business - IT alignment. The second hypothesis proved that the IT governance practices create improved IT investment performance for businesses. The fourth hypothesis confirmed that the IT investment performance create firm business value. In contrary to the expectation, the third hypothesis that the business IT alignment and firm business value failed to support. The implications are also suggested from this study finding.

Contradictory views exist regarding whether business–information technology (IT) alignment enhances or reduces organizational agility, and no consensus has been achieved. To disentangle this puzzle, this study takes both the intellectual and social dimensions of IT alignment into account and investigates how they influence agility in opposite directions through distinct mechanisms. Based on survey data from 429 dyads of business and IT executives, we uncover that intellectual alignment impedes agility by increasing organizational inertia, while social alignment facilitates agility by enhancing emergent business–IT coordination. We also find that social alignment weakens the effect of intellectual alignment on organizational inertia. This paper fills a gap in the information systems (IS) literature by providing a theory-driven explanation of the alignment paradox, which makes a significant contribution to both IS research and practice. The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.2017.0711 .

Context Businesses today must collaborate in a coordinated fashion. To collaborate, they must align their business processes and IT by complying to a common reference architecture. The common reference architecture that addresses their specific collaboration requirements is generally an adaptation of an existing generic reference architecture. However, a design framework for adapting reference architectures is lacking. Objective In this paper we propose a design framework for aligning business processes and IT across diverse collaborating organisations in order to derive a more specific reference architecture from a generic one. Method We developed the design framework using the guidelines of ISO/IEC/IEEE standard for modelling design viewpoints and validated it in a real-life business case study. Results We developed an architectural design framework which we call BITA* that is composed of three coherent architectural design viewpoints. The BP2BP alignment viewpoint provides alignment modelling abstractions for business analysts to be used to align business collaboration processes. The IT2IT alignment viewpoint provides alignment modelling abstractions for software architects to be used to align distributed IT systems. The BP2IT alignment viewpoint provides alignment modelling abstractions for interdisciplinary teams of business and IT specialists for aligning the mapping of business collaboration processes and the underlying distributed IT. The modelling abstractions are applied in a case study to derive a reference architecture for meat supply chain transparency systems. Conclusion A key challenge in developing the design framework is the difficulty of comparing models of business processes and IT that come from diverse organisations. Our main contribution is the set of modelling abstractions, which enabled us to represent business processes and IT in a uniform and comparable manner, and the systematic approach for applying the modelling abstractions. The framework is applied in the agri-food sector and needs to be evaluated further in multiple case studies from various application domains.

IT is the backbone for all organizations, and it has challenged the traditional way of doing business. Universities now are competing globally, and they are virtually crossing their borders. University governance in general plays a very important role in the running of any university. It directs the university towards achievement of its objectives, and it is affected by the surrounding environment. IT Governance is a subset of the university corporate governance and it is it implemented to govern and manage IT effectively. People, information, technology service, infrastructure, applications, culture ethics, processes, principles, policies, frameworks and organizational structure are the tools for IT Governance. The environmental challenges are threatening the existence of many universities and requiring a prompt attention. IT Governance may be the key for the universities to reposition itself and overcome the problems that threaten their existence. AI is a very important strategic tool that can help smart universities in fulfilling their strategic goals. AI presents challenges and opportunities to the IT Governance function. Literature shows that universities are not fully utilizing their IT capabilities and this a clear evidence that they are having serious issues with their IT Governance practices. This exploratory research aims to investigate the role that IT Governance in enhancing universities performance in areas such as: research, teaching and learning, competitiveness, and resources utilization. We develop a conceptual framework that identifies the environmental factors that impact the university IT Governance structure; and strategical and political enablers and benefits of implementing IT Governance system in universities.

IT alignment, even though extensively researched in the last decades, remains to be challenging. Previous studies are criticised for two reasons. First, the majority of the studies focus on the conceptual debate, while practical issues that have implications on IT alignment are overlooked. One of these issues is the influence of organisational structure on IT alignment. Second, studies in few organisational settings, namely private and commercial organisations, have resulted in findings that are not applicable for organisations in other sectors–public organisations. To address the gap in the literature, this study aims to explore the influence of formal and informal organisational structures on IT alignment in a public organisation. As public organisations are joining the trend of digital transformation, identifying appropriate organisational structure that foster IT alignment is an important and timely issue. The result of the case study, conducted in one Swedish municipality, revealed the influence of centralised organisational structure as well as three types of informal organisational structure—interpersonal relationships, professional networks, and cross- departmental relationships—on IT alignment. The findings could be used by leaders in public organisations to design an effective organisational structure that can improve IT alignment and its maturity.

Business-IT Alignment (BITA) is still one of the top management concerns in many organizations due to its strategic benefits. Researchers have highlighted the importance of understanding the significance of BITA in improving organizational performance and gaining competitive advantage. BITA is a dynamic process, and organizations need to adjust it continuously. Moreover, there is still a need for new knowledge on the barriers in BITA in different organizations, like e.g., those from developing countries where were done a few research studies. Therefore, this research has focused on organizations from the banking sectors of The Gambia to identify the barriers in BITA. The research strategy used was survey research and the data was collected through semi-structured interviews combine with internal documents of the studied organizations and analyzed using thematic analysis. The study has identified in total 26 barriers in BITA from which eight are new barriers in BITA in the banking sector organizations of The Gambia. The results of the study contribute to BITA research and can help business and IT managers in attaining and sustaining business-IT alignment and improving their organizational performance.

Organizations introduce changes to adapt to an agile context in a turbulent environment. These change often have an impact on business and information technology. In most cases, the change impacts organizational elements that make the adaptation not well defined, leaving out elements that can lead to misalignment. The change is realized in this article as a project, which will impact all the Business-IT alignment elements. It is important to know the scope of the impact in order to make a complete adaptation. By reviewing the literature, we found that there is no work dealing with this aspect. To fill this gap, we determine the impact of the project on the organization by considering of Business-IT alignment and we proceed with a comparison of the AS IS model of the organization with the TO BE model which is the target to be implemented keeping the system aligned. Accordingly, we propose a metamodel for change by the impact of the project on the Business-IT alignment and a set of rules and algorithms to predict the impact and adaptation. To make these contributions operational, the implementation of Change Business-IT Alignment Tool and demonstrate its applicability through a case study of an urban agency.

Development of information technology has a positive influence on the field of education. The existence of the internet makes it possible to learn, anytime and anywhere with a very broad scope. The world of education offers a wide IT business; therefore it is a very necessary alignment between IT governance with business in the education sector. The trust factor is used as a connecting factor between the alignment relationship IT governance and business. However, someone's trust when using IT in each country is different. This paper aims to assess trust effect on business-IT governance alignment based on culture at the high school level institution. Smart PLS is used to analyze the model to check validity and reliability. The Trust factor in the education sector actually taking into account cultural factors in every Indonesian territory. The results showed that the perception of customer trust in the use of IT has a relationship to business in the education sector through the process of business-IT governance trust alignment in national culture models is 87.1 %. Model is used to assess the extent of the relationship between the successes of the education business through alignment of Business-IT governance seen from the culture of believing in Ti used. It is hoped that this model could be used as a reference for the application of business education improvement through IT governance at one level of education, namely high school.

The studies of Information technology (IT) governance is one of the important part of this paper. The previous research, it concluded if the model of IT governance trust can be used to analyze IT governance at high school and it has already implemented in every school. The model is IT governance trust is developed by 4 variable independent and 5 variable dependent that consist of a readiness model (4 variables/independent variable), a usability model (3 variables/variable dependent), trust variable and IT governance variable. On the other hand, researcher had already experiment trust variable that influence the determination alignment of business strategies and IT strategies to support IT governance. By adopt the previous work; researcher tries to integrate 5 variables, namely business-IT, IT governance, user trust, user satisfaction and loyalty variable. The purpose of the research is assessing how far the user loyalty influenced by business-IT, IT governance, user satisfaction, and user trust when connected on business-IT governance alignment through interpretative and statistical analyses using SMART PLS 3.28 analyzes. The analyses result conclude that user loyalty on IT system use had influenced significantly by variable of the business-IT, IT governance, user satisfaction, and user trust of 59.2 %. It means it is significantly the model can also be used to analyze business-IT governance influence on user loyalty in other place.

Information technology (IT) governance is still a problem for most institutions. IT governance is still something not easy to understand especially to run. Trust is one of the important attributes used as parameters in IT governance. The purpose of this paper is to develop a research model of trust in IT governance implementation model in educational institutions that it is influenced by business strategy and IT alignment as a connecting variable between trust variables and IT governance variables. The method and theories in this study uses the previous studies by adopting, integrating and adapting the business-IT alignment into IT governance trust model then the new model proposed and developed. The new model consists of 4 variables in 5 influential relationships. This study also shows coherent aspects of the process model, the causal model, the questionnaire of each indicator. Determination alignment of business strategies and IT strategies to support IT governance reach of 83% and this result conclude the variable system trust, business strategy and IT strategy has real influenced to IT governance. Therefore, the goal of educational institutions is achieved a good IT governance so the business-IT alignment can be reach.

In the age of digital disruption, organizations face the growing need to both optimize existing processes, and to radically innovate and disrupt them. Business Process Management (BPM) has proven great value for process control and process optimization, however not for process disruption. Our Systematic Literature Review of Business Process Ambidexterity provides an overview of this nascent domain. In our research, we have divided all articles into two main strands of research, focusing on: (1) organizational capabilities enabling Business Process Ambidexterity, and (2) the actual dynamic balance between exploration and exploitation in BPM, which is enabled by the modelling and optimization stages in the business process lifecycle. As there is no widely accepted definition of Business Process Ambidexterity, we propose one for future use, based on the concept of paradoxical thinking. Business Process Ambidexterity may both enable, and be facilitated by digitalization; however, there is limited evidence that Business Process Ambidexterity enables Business-IT alignment. The main research gap is the lack of conceptual and practical guidelines on Business Process Ambidexterity implementation. Hence, this article encourages future research and provides preliminary guidance for practitioners.

This paper describes the development and execution of a data value assessment survey of data professionals and academics. Its purpose was to explore more effective data value assessment techniques and to better understand the perceived relative importance of data value dimensions for data practitioners. This is important because despite the current deep interest in data value, there is a lack of data value assessment techniques and no clear understanding of how individual data value dimensions contribute to a holistic model of data value. A total of 34 datasets were assessed in a field study of 20 organisations in a range of sectors from finance to aviation. It was found that in 17 out of 20 of the organisations contacted that no data value assessment had previously taken place. All the datasets evaluated were considered valuable organisational assets and the operational impact of data was identified as the most important data value dimension. These results can inform the communityâ s search for data value models and assessment techniques. It also assists further development of capability maturity models for data value assessment and monitoring. This is to our knowledge the first publication of the underlying data for a multi-organization data value assessment and as such it represents a new stage in the evolution of evidence-based data valuation.

Why is it that, despite the large amount of studies on IT governance, many professionals still fail to put these theories into practice? Building on the previous question, we reviewed the literature to examine how organizational learning theories can help in understanding the gap between the ‘theory' and ‘practice' of IT governance. Thereafter, a focus group discussed this gap within the context of Industry 4.0. The findings indicate important concerns that might hinder learning in organizations, including: lack of shared domain knowledge between business and IT stakeholders, lack of shared understanding and poor diffusion of IT governance practices in the organization. Unless these concerns are successfully resolved, executives will experience difficulties to govern IT successfully within the context of Industry 4.0. We provide recommendations to practitioners with regards to the capabilities which should be present in the organisation to overcome such concerns. These capabilities represent a T-shaped portfolio of skills.

Information technology (IT) governance is an important component in developing an overall business and IT strategy. Factors to consider in the IT governance and strategy relationship are project portfolio control, risk management. Using a quantitative survey of 201 IT executives a significant relationship was shown between effective IT governance and project portfolio control and risk management. However, the results of the study did not support a significant relationship between effective IT governance and business/IT alignment. Ultimately, this study helped to shed light on the relationship between effective IT governance and project portfolio control as well as provided support to the existing literature on the relationship between effective IT governance and risk.

This paper offers a novel view on the business-IT alignment that takes on the three major challenges of prior research: theory, process and applicability. The theoretical deliberations and empirical data of a single in-depth case study shows that taking an activity theoretical lens offers a way to conceptualize the mechanisms, triggers and complexities of business-IT alignment that enhance our understanding of the alignment process and reveal important implications for practice. Building on activity theory and the notion of interrelated activity systems, the authors propose to view business and IT as two distinct, yet related activity systems that co-evolve over time. Moreover, they show that business-IT alignment can be understood as a process of continuous adjustments between the two collective, pragmatic, contested and situated activity systems of business and IT. Examining data spanning six years of transformation processes, the authors systematically increase their understanding of the processes and underlying mechanisms of aligning business and IT. These insights are facilitated via the conceptualization of the alignment as a process aimed to reduce contradictions and tensions within and between the linked activity systems of business and IT. The theoretical deliberations and empirical evidence show that AT provides a strong theoretical foundation and a robust framework that is able to facilitate rigorous process-oriented studies, whose findings can guide endeavors of detecting and approaching misalignments in practice.

Business-IT alignment continues to remain a top management concern. Regardless of ample research, achieving and sustaining business-IT alignment remains challenging to organization's management. To this day, the influence of organizational politics remains unstudied in the light of business-IT alignment. By performing a case study in a large organization in Sweden, the authors present and discuss how organizational politics influences business-IT alignment from the viewpoint of practitioners. They find that organizational politics has a negative influence on communications, partnering, IT governance, IT scope, and business and IT skills of the Strategic Alignment Maturity model. Furthermore, the authors identified several root causes for organizational politics in the business-IT alignment context, not addressed by the commonly used business-IT alignment constructs. The findings of this research study are useful to business and IT practitioners for achieving and sustaining business-IT alignment in their organizations considering the influence of organizational politics.