A Characterization Framework for Evaluating Business/IT

Alignment Strategies

Lerina Aversano, Carmine Grasso and Maria Tortorella

Department of Engineering, University of Sannio, Via Traiano, 82100 Benevento, Italy

Keywords: Measurement Framework, Evaluation and Analysis, Enterprise Evolution, Modeling, Alignment.

Abstract: In the last years, the alignment issue was addressed in several researches and numerous methods, techniques

and tools were proposed. Therefore, a support for choosing the approach that is the most suitable one to a

specific need is required. This paper proposes a characterization framework useful for evaluating different

alignment approaches, with the aim of discovering similarity, maturity, capability to measure, model, asses

and evolve the alignment level existing among business and technological assets of an enterprise. The

proposed framework is applied to analyse the alignment research published in the Information &

Management journal that that more published on this topic. The achieved evaluation results are presented.

1 INTRODUCTION

The issue of alignment was mentioned for the first

time in the late 1970s and since then several studies

and researches were conducted highlighting the

alignment concerns - Society for Information

Management (2006). Nowadays the alignment

represents a top concern issue. During the last

decade, several studies were proposed by

researchers, practitioners and companies, but most

of them are at an embryonic stage. They

demonstrated through case studies, surveys and

empirical approaches that the business and IT

(Information Technology) performance are tightly

coupled (Chan et al., 1997); (Chan and Reich, 2007);

(Kearns and Lederer, 2003); (de Leede et al., 2002),

and enterprises cannot be competitive if their

business and IT strategies are not aligned. These

studies regard different abstraction levels from

functional to strategic level (Henderson and

Venkatraman, 1993). In particular, Strategic

Alignment of IT exists when goals, activities and

processes of a business organization are in harmony

with the information systems supporting them

(McKenn and Smith, 2003). High degree of

alignment positively influences IT effectiveness and

leads to higher business performance (Croteau and

Bergeron, 2001). In (Chen et al., 2008), the dynamic

capability perspective is applied to a Taiwanese

Semiconductor Company for demonstrating that it is

necessary a reconfiguration of IT to support business

strategy when misalignment happens. On the other

hand at hand, the functional level the analysis of the

alignment between existing business processes and

software systems is necessary for optimizing the

effectiveness of the software support. In literature,

different terms are used to refer at the alignment

concept: it is called fit in (Porter, 1996); it is also

defined bridge (Ciborra, 1997); integration in (Weill

and Broadbent, 1998); harmony in (Luftman et al.,

2000); linkage in (Henderson and Venkatraman,

1989); fusion in (Smaczny, 2001); and further

definition and terms are in (Chan and Reich, 2007).

For being useful and completely applicable, an

alignment strategy must include a set of

components. The first step to be performed is the

modeling of the various entities involved in the

analysis and definition of links between business and

IT entities. Then, the measurement of the alignment

degree existing between the chosen assets is required

for establishing if improvement actions are

necessary. Then, suggestions for the evolution are

required for improving the degree of alignment. An

automatic tool is also useful for supporting all the

process of detection, assessment and evolution of the

considered entities.

To support and address future research

concerning the alignment, it is necessary to know the

state of the art in this area with a deep investigation

of the already executed researches. With this in

mind, this paper introduces a characterization

155

Aversano L., Grasso C. and Tortorella M..

A Characterization Framework for Evaluating Business/IT Alignment Strategies.

DOI: 10.5220/0004005301550164

In Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS-2012), pages 155-164

ISBN: 978-989-8565-12-9

 2012 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

framework including a set of questions aiming at

understanding the goal of a proposed alignment

approach and its effective applicability to a working

context. The definition of the framework followed a

careful analysis of the literature considering the

alignment topics. This analysis aimed at identifying

commonalities and differences among the proposed

approaches for being later incorporated in the

characterization framework.

The presented study was planned by following

the comprehensive guideline that Kitchenham et al.

(2009) proposed for performing a systematic

literature reviews appropriate for software

engineering researchers. Systematic reviews aim at

presenting a fair evaluation of a research topic by

using a trustworthy, rigorous, and auditable

methodology. The proposed guidelines were derived

from three existing guidelines used by medical

researchers, for conducting a systematic review in

clinician field (Pai et al., 2004). Performing the

review required the definition of a framework for

characterizing alignment studies from the literature.

Then, the framework was used for evaluating its

applicability to the studies published in the

Information & Management journal. This journal

was chosen as it is the one that published more

research studies regarding the alignment concepts.

The rest of the paper is organized as follow:

Section 2 describes the background of the alignment

topic; Section 3 describes the proposed

characterization framework; Section 4 presents the

results of the analysis of the alignment papers

published in the Information & Management

journal; and final remarks are given in the last

section.

2 BACKGROUND

A view of business and technological alignment

defines at which degree the information technology

mission, objectives, and plans, support and are

supported by the business mission, objectives, and

plans (Carvalho and Sousa, 2008). Moreover, it

involves “fit” and “integration” among business

strategy, IT strategy, business infrastructure, and IT

infrastructure (Henderson and Venkatraman, 1993);

(Papp, 2001). A relevant “problem” is the

understanding of what business and information

system alignment is, how to obtain it and therefore

maintain it (Pereira and Sousa, 2003). Traditional

approaches addresses the alignment concern for

understanding how organizations can achieve

alignment, but little contribution is given regarding

how to identify and correct misalignment.

Different models are introduced in literature.

One of them was SAM – Strategic Alignment,

Model from Henderson and Venkatraman (1993) .

Different study were later performed for evaluating

these models. For example, in (Avison et al., 2004)

the SAM model was used in financial service firms

for determining if it was useful to asses strategic

alignment between IT and business. In (Bleistein et

al., 2006), the general aspects concerning modeling

was well debated and a modeling issue was

proposed. In particular, the VMOST – Vision,

Mission, Objectives, Strategies, Tactics – analysis

was treated to split the business strategy into the

main components of vision, mission, goals,

strategies and tactics, and the BRG – Business Rules

Group – model was proposed for modeling the

organization’s systems. In (De Castro et al., 2011),

the MDA – Model Driven Architecture – tool was

used to support the alignment management, and

meta-models were proposed for representing the

entities involved in the alignment analysis. In

(Aversano et al., 2010a), a framework was proposed

for modeling the alignment at the functional level

and some metrics were introduced for measuring the

alignment degree between business processes and

software systems. In (Etien and Rolland, 2005),

criteria and associated generic metrics were

proposed to quantify at which extent there is a fit

between the business and system which supports it.

In (Wieringa et al., 2003), a framework was

presented for analyzing the alignment problem and

proposing an approach to application architecture

design with reference to a business context.

The Business and Information Systems

MisAlignment Model (BISMAM), was proposed in

(Carvalho and Sousa, 2008); (Thevenet et al., 2006),

to understand, classify and manage misalignments.

The proposal addresses the alignment problem

combining the misalignment approach with medical

sciences approaches, based on a metaphor between

misalignment and disease. The authors believe that

the misalignment approach is closer to organizations

real life and that medical sciences approaches

provide relevant concepts and techniques for

misalignment classification and management.

The research constructs were measured using

multi-item scales adapted from the SAM framework

(Chen, 2010). The relationship existing between the

alignment maturity dimensions and IS strategic

alignment was examined and the results were

applied to provide a snapshot of business–IT

alignment in China. In (Hooper et al., 2010), a new

conceptualization of alignment was reported

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together with the development and testing of a

parsimonious model which addresses this issue. Data

from a survey of 415 respondents from medium-

large New Zealand companies were used to test the

model. It was found that IS-marketing alignment had

a positive impact on both business and marketing

performances, and that the latter had a modest but

positive impact on business performance. This study

extended the application of Venkatraman’s from

(Henderson and Venkatraman, 1989), and offered a

support to the robustness of his conceptualization

and measurement of strategic orientation.

In (Becker et al., 2008), it was debated that

Software Process Improvement (SPI) programs

increase the competitiveness of software

development organizations. Moreover says that QFD

– Quality Function Deployment – is an effective

technique that can be used for institutionalizing

improvement processes on the basis of the

organization’s strategic planning (SP). Several

studies proposed the use of QFD together with SPI

programs. The purpose was to present QFD as an

alternative to the strategic alignment of a SPI

program. A preliminary evaluation indicated that the

use of QFD could help organizations to see better

and faster results in their SPI programs.

3 THE CHARACTERIZATION

FRAMEWORK

The alignment strategies proposed in literature

consider different aspects of the alignment and

analyze it at different abstraction levels. The aim of

the proposed framework is to understand if an

alignment strategy is suitable to an enterprise’s

specific needs and, in particular, if its description is

complete and clear for being easily applying it. The

proposed framework was defined for being generally

applicable for analyzing any kind of alignment

strategy. Then, the main components it considers

represent a synthesis of all the aspects covered by

the alignment strategies proposed in literature.

Specifically, the framework considers the three

following main phases (Aversano et al., 2010a):

1. Modeling. All the entities involved by the

alignment analysis should be modeled, so to exclude

all the business and technological details that are not

relevant for the study. This phase is necessary to

search and represent the information that the

considered alignment approach uses for analyzing

the alignment at the considered abstraction level.

The modeled entities regarding the different aspects

involved in the alignment evaluation should be

mapped, so to facilitate the next analysis (Aversano

et al., 2010b).

2. Alignment Evaluation. An alignment approach

should quantitatively evaluate the alignment degree

of the considered entities for objectively analyzing it

and understanding if it reaches a satisfying level or

improvement actions should be performed for

increasing it. This requires the use of suitable and

easily quantifiable metrics.

3. Evolution Execution. If the alignment level

does not reach a satisfying level, a misalignment in

the analyzed entities exists, and evolution actions

should be performed and for increasing it.

The proposed characterization framework considers

each of the activities cited above by including, for

each of them, a section with a set of questions. In

addition, the framework includes an initial section of

generic questions aiming at categorizing the

alignment approach discussed in a considered

research paper and capturing the generic information

regarding it.

Every question is formulated so that it can be

answered by analyzing the documentation of a

considered strategy and using the following values:

• Yes, indicating that the information required by

the question is clearly and completely described in

the analyzed documentation.

• No, indicating that the analyzed documentation

does not consider the specific aspect the question

concerns.

• Partially, indicating that the aspect indicated in

the question is only partially addressed in the

documentation.

• Not clear, indicating that the documentation does

not clearly describe the information needed for

answering the question.

• Not defined, indicating that the documentation

does not describe cite the information needed for

answering the question.

The following sub-sections describe the four

sections of the characterization framework detailing

the questions introduced in each of them.

3.1 General Questions

The first top-level questions deal with general

aspects of an alignment strategy and aims at

categorizing it. Table 1 lists the questions included

in this section of the framework. In particular, the

questions are formulated for understanding if

motivations, needs of the alignment analysis (D1),

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and challenges of the considered strategy (D4) are

clearly debated. Alignment strategies can analyze

this aspect at different levels, involving diverse

entities. In fact, regarding the business assets, the

strategy can consider: enterprise goals, business

entities, business strategies and business processes;

on the other side, from the Information Technology

point of view, it is possible to consider technologies

and information systems (applications and data)

(Reich and Benbasat, 2000). These entities are

considered at different abstraction levels, and two

different levels can be considered: strategic level

analyzing business strategy and IT strategy, and

functional level considering business processes and

information systems (Henderson and Venkatraman,

1989). Then, the proposed framework also includes

questions for understanding these aspects (D2, D3,

D5). In addition, the definition of pre-conditions for

applying the strategy are investigated, as some

information can be missing in the operative context

for being able to apply the analyzed approach (D6).

Table 1: General questions.

ID GENERAL

Are motivations and needs of the alignment strategy

treated?

Is the dimension of the considered type of alignment

discussed?

D3 Is the concept of alignment defined?

Is the challenges in attaining the treated type of

alignment?

Are the entities involved in the considered type of

alignment discussed ?

Are the pre-conditions for applying the proposed

strategy clearly stated?

D7 Is the proposed strategy scientifically mature?

D8 Is the need of quantitative methods discussed?

D9 Are future perspectives and/or future work proposed?

D10 Are lessons learned discussed?

Table 2: Modeling questions.

ID MODELING

D11 Are models to represent alignment used?

D12 Are models to represent the separate entities used?

D13

Is the proposed model based on existing research

approaches?

D14 Is the modeling automatically supported?

D15

Was the proposed modeling approach applied to case

studies?

D16 Was the proposed modeling approach applied on the

field?

Furthermore, the initial section of the framework

analyses if the strategy was defined by considering

previous experiences and underwent to improvement

actions (D7), if it included quantitative studies (D8),

and if it suggested improvements and extensions in

the future (D9). All this helps to understand its

scientific maturity; while the experimental maturity

is verified by considering the application on the field

of the considered approach and knowledge and

experience gained through its use (D10).

Table 3: Alignment evaluation questions.

ID MEASUREMENT

D17 Is a method to measure the level of alignment utilized?

D18

Is the proposed alignment measurement method based

on existing research approaches?

D19

Is the alignment measurement method applied to case

studies?

D20

Was the alignment measurement method applied on the

field?

D21

Are statistical analysis used and the results

summarized?

D22

Is the alignment measurement method automatically

supported?

Table 4: Alignment evolution questions.

ID EVOLUTION

D23 Is an approach proposed for addressing and evolving the

alignment?

D24 Is the proposed evolution approach based on existing

research approaches?

D25 Is the evolution approach automatically supported?

D26 Was the evolution tool applied to a case studies?

D27 Was the evolution tool applied on the field?

Table 5: Classification of the papers.

Type Paper

Practice S1,S2,S4,S5,S6,S7,S8,S9,S11,S12,S13,

S16,S17,S19

Research S3, S5, S10, S11, S14, S15, S17, S18

Review

Survey

3.2 Modeling Questions

The second section of the framework includes

questions dealing with modeling activities. Table 2

reports the included questions aiming at

investigating the completeness of the available

information regarding the existence of modeling

techniques in the alignment approach described in an

analysed research study (D11), and the possibility of

modeling the elementary entities involved in the

alignment analysis and related reciprocal

relationships (D12). Moreover, the questions

investigate on the maturity of the analyzed modeling

approach by verifying if its definition depends on

other approaches (D13) and it was already applied to

case studies (D15) or working contexts (D16).

3.3 Alignment Evaluation Questions

The third group of questions concerns the alignment

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measurement activity. Table 3 presents the questions

formulated with the aim of verifying if the approach

described in the analyzed paper includes

measurement activities and the related description

(D17). As the adoption of already existing

techniques may contribute to increase the

effectiveness of an approach, question D18

considers this aspect; while the subsequent questions

(D19, D20) asks if the approach was previously

applied for understanding its applicability. Finally,

specific questions are defined for understanding the

exploitation of statistical methods (D21) and

automation level of the proposed approach (D22).

3.4 Alignment Evolution Questions

The last questions of the framework are presented in

Table 4 and regards the possibility that the analyzed

paper considers evolution activities for managing the

alignment of the analyzed entities and to be

performed when misalignment happens (D23). Even

this group of questions analyzed the maturity and

applicability of the proposed approach. In particular,

questions on the fact that the definition of the

proposed evolution support is based on the current

research literature (D24), that it is automatically

supported (D25), and it was already applied in

operative contexts (D26 and D27) are considered.

4 APPLYING THE FRAMEWORK

The proposed characterization framework was

applied for analyzing some alignment approaches

selected from the literature. In particular, a full

investigation of the research papers concerning

alignment was performed. Numerous journal and

conference papers were identified. Therefore, it was

decided to concentrate the attention on journal

papers as they should publish more mature research

results. With this in mind, the IEEE, ACM, Springer,

Elsevier and Science Direct database were queried.

The journal that was discovered to be the most

representative of the alignment topic was the

Information & Management journal from Elsevier.

28 articles of this journal were identified; 5 of them

were not available on-line, while 4 papers were

discarded as they did not concern the Business and

IT alignment. Therefore, the 19 papers listed in the

Appendix were considered for being analyzed by

using the proposed characterization framework. The

paper codes used in the appendix are used in the

following for referencing them. The appendix shows

that in the considered papers, the alignment problem

was faced since 1996 (S1 and S4). In particular,

these papers focused on strategic alignment during

Business and Information System planning. After

publishing these initial papers, the alignment topic

were not considered since 2000, and only after 2003,

it is possible to observe a growing interest regarding

these aspects. Table 5 shows a classification of the

papers on the basis of their kind. Four categories

were considered: Practice, Research, Review and

Survey. The table shows that the papers regard

practice and research and no review or survey was

found. In particular, the large part of the analysed

papers are practical, even if some of them, such as

S5 and S17, face the alignment problem from the

point of view of the research by proposing new

approaches. Before analysing all the obtained

evaluation results, the application of the

characterization framework is shown in Table 6

reporting the answers collected by applying the

characterization framework to paper S11 and the

explanation to each answer. The analysis of the

answers highlights that the paper concerns strategic

alignment. It appears to miss many aspects. In

particular, methodologies for supporting alignment

modeling, evaluation and evolution are not provided.

The paper rather appears to be an empirical study

regarding ITI-enabled flexibility, competitive

impacts, and organizational moderators of business

value. Table 7 includes the answers to all the

questions coming from the application of the

characterization framework to the analysed papers.

The table uses: “part” for the partially answer; ndef

for the “not defined” answer; and ncl for the “not

clear” answer. For the sake of clarity, the “yes” and

“part” answers are shadowed. Table 7 shows that no

paper describes an approach including all the

activities considered in Section 3. All the papers

provide general information regarding the proposed

approach even if they very often do not include

sufficient details for understanding its usefulness,

maturity, advantages and future perspective. Table 8

includes the distribution of the analysed papers with

reference to the considered dimension. The large

part of the papers considers the alignment at the

strategic level and only some at the functional level.

Some approaches, such as S3, S15 and S17,

consider both levels, strategic and functional. All the

papers, but S17, describe the entities involved in the

approach they propose, as shown in Table 9. It can

be noticed that the large part of the proposed

approaches considers business entities, with

particular reference to business strategies and

processes; while, few of the analysed approaches

also consider the IT components.

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Table 6: Results from the analysis of papers S11.

General questions

yes: Business, public, and governmental organizations

confronted with time and other pressures must adjust their

strategies, but change cannot be accomplished unless the IT

Infrastructure (ITI) is accommodated in an efficient and

effective manner.

yes: Strategic Alignment

D3 No

yes: As ITI investments are not always guided by current

usiness needs, efforts to extend ITI should consider how

flexibility is introduced into each of its elements and how

they are interrelated. The approach therefore identifies the

sources of flexibility and their interrelationships and find

how they are related to the perceived IT value.

yes: The entities involve are: technical ITI elements, human

ITI elements, process ITI element

D6 not defined

D7 No

D8 No

D9 No

D10

yes: The identified lesson learned brought to the

identification of three limitations of the approach: such a

research design only establishes associations between

constructs, whereas causality must rely on theoretical

justification; although organizational IT users may find the

evaluation of ITI resources and capabilities difficult, their

perspective is necessary to identify gaps in different

perceptions of ITI; the dynamics of longitudinal processes

cannot be analysed using this methodology.

Modelling questions

D11

yes: The approach just hypothesized the use of research

model

D12 No

D13 not clear

D14 No

D15

yes: Empirical study

D16 No

Measurement questions

D17 No

D18 No

D19

yes: Web-based survey

D20 No

D21

yes: SEM - Structural Equations Models- techniques and

MLE - Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE), one-way

ANOVA, CFI, ComparativeFit Index, RMR, Root Mean

square Residual, RMSEA, Root Mean Square Error of

Approximation, Chi-square, AGFI adjusted GFI(Goodness-

of-fit)

D22 No

Evolution questions

D23 No

D24 No

D25 No

D26 No

D27 No

Table 7 shows that few papers include evaluation

activities, and this shows that few attention is paid to

the measurement activities. The approaches

considering this aspect often base their solution on

existing approaches. In particular Table 10 includes

the main measurement approach adopted.

STROEPIS – Strategic Orientation of the Existing

Portfolio of IS applications – is a measurement

model based on the STROBE – Strategic Orientation

of Business Enterprises – instrument. It is useful to

model IT strategies and uses the same eight

dimensions of STROBE. In (Chan and Reich, 2007)

, the authors characterized the strategic alignment as

the fit between STROBE and STROEPIS. The

Balanced scorecard (BSC), used in S9, translates an

organization’s mission and strategy into a

comprehensive set of performance measures that

provide the framework for a strategic measurement

and management system. It measures organizational

performance across four balanced perspectives:

financial, customers, internal business processes,

and learning and growth. The BSC enables

companies to track financial results, while

simultaneously monitoring progress in building the

capabilities and acquiring the intangible assets they

need for future growth. On the other side, many

papers present empirical studies and Table 11 lists

the approaches used in the statistical analysis

performed by the researchers presented in the

considered papers. Actually, even Table 13 indicated

that many papers pay attention to the execution of

empirical activities. They are very often conducted

for analysing some trends and situations in a set of

analysed organizations. Among the used statistical

approach, SEM – Structural Equation Modeling – is

a statistical technique allowing the researcher to test

hypothesized direct relationships between

independent and dependent variables, such as

multiple regression, and allowing the testing of

indirect or mediated relationships between observed

and unobserved latent variables while examining the

reliability of the items to the latent variables.

LISREL – Linear Structural RELations – is the most

general program that is available for estimating

structural equation models. It can be used to analyze

data from survey, experiments, experimental

designs, and longitudinal studies. It allows one to

test the goodness of fit of models, to diagnose

problem with models, to fix or constrain model

coefficient, to do multiple-group analyses, to

estimate means and intercepts as well as slopes, and

most importantly, to distinguish consistently

between latent concepts and observed indicators.

The analysed papers also give importance to the

modelling activities. Many of them are based on

already existing modelling approaches. Table 12

describes the used techniques with reference to the

paper using them. Many papers considers the SAM –

Strategic Alignment Model – model (Henderson and

Venkatraman, 1989). It is useful to treat the IS

strategy alignment and becomes a support for a

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Table 7: Results of the analysis of the considered papers.

S1 S2 S3 S4 S5 S6 S7 S8 S9 S10 S11 S12 S13 S14 S15 S16 S17 S18 S19

yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes part yes

yes yes yes yes yes yes no yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes

no no

yes no yes yes part part part yes no no part no yes no part no no

no no

yes part yes yes yes yes yes yes yes part part part yes yes yes no yes

yes yes yes yes part yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes no yes yes

yes yes par part yes yes no yes yes yes ndef part no part ndef no no yes ncl

yes no ncl yes yes yes no yes part yes no no yes no ndef yes yes yes no

yes no yes part yes yes no part yes yes no part yes no ndef no part no ndef

yes part no no yes yes no no no no no part no yes ndef no yes part no

D10

yes no ncl no no yes no yes no yes yes no yes yes yes yes no no yes

D11

yes yes yes no yes yes no no part yes yes no yes yes yes yes no yes yes

D12

no no

yes no no yes no no yes yes no no yes no no yes no no no

D13

yes yes ncl no no yes yes no yes ncl ncl no yes yes yes ncl no no no

D14

yes yes no no no no part no no no no no no no no no no part no

D15

yes yes no no yes no no no no no no no yes no no no yes no

D16

yes no yes no yes yes yes no yes yes yes no yes no no yes yes no yes

D17

no no

yes no yes no yes yes yes yes no no no no no no no no yes

D18

no no ncl no

yes no no yes yes yes no no no no no no no no ncl

D19

no no

yes no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no

D20

no no

yes no yes no yes yes yes yes yes yes yes no no yes yes no yes

D21

yes part yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes no no yes no no yes

D22

no no

yes no yes no yes no no yes no no no no no no no no no

D23

no no

yes no part yes yes yes part yes no no no no no no no no no

D24

no no

part no yes yes yes yes yes ncl no no no no no no no no no

D25

no no

part no part no yes no no no no no no no no no no no no

D26

no no

yes no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no

D27

no no

yes no yes yes no yes yes yes no no no no no no no no no

collaborative process between the business strategy,

business organisation, IS infrastructure, and IT

strategy, at two different abstraction level of the

alignment: functional and strategic. The Path model

is used to organize different variables. In particular,

in S9, hypotheses are considered, having as a

starting point the importance of the strategic

alignment, and motivations and success of the ERP

projects. The model captures the relationships

between the degree of success of ERP projects, the

associated business process changes, and subsequent

internal efficiency benefits. Then, it captures the

impact of internal process efficiency on customer

and financial benefits. Paper S10 adopts the gestalt

research model considering a perspective of fit, and

looking at a large number of variables that

collectively define a meaningful and coherent slice

of organizational reality. The Business rules services

model is considered in S14. It provides high level

services and functions that evolve during the

maturity and expanded the scope of the business

rules deployments across an enterprise. The

Business Rules Deployment Maturity Model

identifies maturity along five dimensions, including

organizational scope, ownership, structure,

development responsibility, and implementation

responsibility. In addition, many analysed papers

define their own measurement approach.

Table 7 shows that few papers (just S3, S5, S6,

S8, S9 and S10) deals with the evolution the

considered entities. This demonstrated that the

attention is nowadays more concentrated in knowing

what alignment is and how to manage it.

Finally, many papers apply the proposed

approach as indicated in Table 13. The main

attention is paid to applications on the field and

empirical studies.

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Table 8: Distribution of the papers with reference to

dimension.

Dimension of

alignment

Paper

Strategic S1, S2, ,S3, S4, S5,S6, S7, S8,S9, S11, S12,

S13, S15, S17, S19

Functional S3, S14, S15, S16,S17, S18

Table 9: Involved entities.

Involved Entities Paper

Business Strategy S2, S5, S8,

S7, S9, S10,

S13,S19

IT strategy S2,S5,

S8,S10,S13

IT investment S8,S13

Business performance S7, S8,S19

Business Structure S10

IT Structure S10,S13

Business process S3, S13, S15

Organization’s structure S13

Human resource S15

ERP Strategy, Time cost, Financial Benefits S9

Critical success factor S3

IT systems S3,S5

Business objectives, E-business performance,

E-commerce strategy, E-commerce strength

and opportunities

S19

Business rule S14,S15

Service systems S14

Environmental uncertainty, Information

intensity, Business dependence on It, IT

participation in Business Planning, IT Plan,

Business Plan, Competitive advantage

S16

IS managers, Systems development

methodologies

S17

Goal (enterprise level), Functional (scenario

level), Data, Output misfits (activity level)

S18

IS Strategy, Corporate Strategy S1

Organization’s IS S7

Technical elements of IT Infrastructure,

Human elements of IT Infrastructure, Process

elements of IT Infrastructure

S11

IS/IT manager, Business manager S2

Infrastructure, Application S5

Table 10: Used measurement approaches.

Measure Paper

STROBE, strategic orientation of business

enterprises

S7, S8, S9

STROEPIS, strategic orientation of the existing

portfolio of IS applications

S7, S8, S9

BSC, Balanced score card S9

Other S5

Table 11: Considered statistical analysis approaches.

Statistical Analysis Paper

ANOVA, One-way analysis of variance S10,S11,S19,S4

CFI, Comparative Fit Index S6,S7,S11,S13,

S16

NNFI, Non-Normed Fit Index S7,S13,S16

Satorra–Bentler (SB x2/d.f.) S13

RMR, Root Mean square Residual S6,S7,S11,S13,

S16

RMSEA, Root Mean Square Error of

Approximation

S6,S7,S10,S11,

S13,S16

Correlations S10

Error variances S10

GIF, Goodness-of-Fit Statistic S6

ROA, average Return-On-Assets S12,S19

ROS,PNP S19

TLI, Tucker–Lewis Index S16

Chi-square S6,

S10,S11,S16

Chi-square/d. f. S6,S7,S16

AGFI adjusted GFI(Goodness-of-fit) S7,S11

LISREL (linear structural relations) S7

SEM technique is a statistical Structural

equation modeling

S11

Two-tailed F-test S2

Other S5,s17

Table 12: Used modelling techniques.

Model Paper

SAM Strategic Alignment Model S1,S2, S6,S15

Path model S9

Gestalt model of strategic alignment S10

Business rules deployment maturity

model

S14, S16

Business rules tasks/services model S14

UML model S18

Other S3,S7,S11, S13,S19

Table 13: Application of the proposed approach.

Type Paper

Case Study S2,S3,S14,S18

On the field S1,S3, S4,S5,S6,S7,S10,

S11,S12,S16,S19,S13

Empirical

Study

S1,S4,S5,S6,S7,S8,S9,S10,S11,S12,S13,S1

6,S17,S19

Example

5 CONCLUSIONS

The alignment between business and information

systems assumed a growing relevance in the last

years. This research issue was addressed in several

researches proposing numerous methods, techniques

and tools. This paper proposes a characterization

framework to characterize different approaches, with

aim of discovering similarity, maturity, capability to

measure, model, asses and evolve the alignment.

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This kind of investigation is aimed to support and

address future research concerning the alignment.

Indeed, it is necessary to understand which are the

aspects considered in the literature of this area with a

quantitative approach. Because the field of

alignment is wide and concerns different aspects, the

aim of the presented study is to help practitioners,

students and researchers to focalize the attention on

a particular interested issue.

The proposed characterization framework was

applied to the research works regarding the

alignment topics published in Journal Information &

Management, and the results of the evaluation is

presented. The results for this preliminary

application of the characterization framework

emphasize that the modeling, measurement and

evolution phases of an alignment approach are not

adequately addressed in the analyzed strategies.

Obviously, besides the Journal Information &

Management, many other sources of alignment

approaches exist and the results obtained in this

preliminary study need the confirmation of a wider

investigation involving more and more research

approaches. This will be one of the main future work

on which the authors are working.

As further future work, the framework proposed

can be used to make a survey of the studies

presented in the literature, and understand how to

better address the research issues in the alignment

area. The aim will also regard the classification of

different model, measurement, and quantitative

approaches addressing the alignment issue at

different abstraction level, and understanding which

of them better address a specific alignment problem.

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APPENDIX: THE ANALYSED

PAPERS

Considered papers from Journal Information &

Management – Elsevier

S1. Baets, W. R. J.: Some empirical evidence on IS Strategy

Alignment in banking. 30(4), pp.155-177, July 1996

S2. Burn, J. M., Szeto, C.: A comparison of the views of

business and IT management on success factors for

strategic alignment. 37(4), pp.197-216, June 2000.

S3. Peak, D., Guynes, C. S., Kroon, V.: Information

technology Alignment Planning—a case study. 42(4),

pp.619-633, May 2005.

S4. Teo, T. S. H., King, W. R.,: Assessing the impact of

integrating business planning and IS planning. 30(6),

pp.309-321, September 1996.

S5. Cumps, B., Martens, D., De Backer, M., Haesen, R.,

Viaene, S., Dedene, G., Baesens, B., Snoeck, M.: Inferring

comprehensible business/ICT alignment rules. 46(2),

pp.116-124, March 2009.

S6. Chen, L.: Business–IT alignment maturity of companies in

China. 47(1), pp.9-16, January 2010.

S7. Johnson, A. M., Lederer, A. L.: CEO/CIO mutual

understanding, strategic alignment, and the contribution of

IS to the organization. 47(3), pp.138-149, April 2010.

S8. Byrd, T. A., Lewis, B. R., Bryan, R. W.: The leveraging

influence of strategic alignment on IT investment: An

empirical examination. 43(3), pp.308-321, April 2006.

S9. Velcu, O.: Strategic alignment of ERP implementation

stages: An empirical investigation. 47(3), pp.158-166,

April 2010.

S10. Bergeron, F., Raymond, L., Rivard, S.: Ideal patterns of

strategic alignment and business performance. 41(8),

pp.1003-1020, November 2004

S11. Fink, L., Neumann, S.: Exploring the perceived business

value of the flexibility enabled by information technology

infrastructure. 46(2), pp.90-99, March 2009.

S12. Choe, J.: The effect of environmental uncertainty and

strategic applications of IS on a firm’s performance, 40(4),

pp.257-268, March 2003.

S13. Newkirk, H. E., Lederer, A. L.: The effectiveness of

strategic information systems planning under

environmental uncertainty. 43(4), pp.481-501, June 2006.

S14. Nelson, M. L., Peterson, J., Rariden, R. L., Sen, R.,:

Transitioning to a business rule management service

model: Case studies from the property and casualty

insurance industry. 47(1), pp.30-41, January 2010.

S15. Aerts, A. T. M., Goossenaerts, J. B. M. , Hammer, D. K. ,

Wortmann, J. C.: Architectures in context: on the evolution

of business, application software, and ICT platform

architectures. 41(6), pp.781-794, July 2004.

S16. Kearns, G. S., Lederer, A. L.: The impact of industry

contextual factors on IT focus and the use of IT for

competitive advantage. 41(7), pp.899-919, September

2004.

S17. Huisman, M., Iivari, J.: Deployment of systems

development methodologies: Perceptual congruence

between IS managers and systems developers. 43(1),

pp.29-49, January 2006.

S18. Wu, J., Shin, S., Heng, M. S. H.: A methodology for ERP

misfit analysis. 44(8), pp.666-680, December 2007.

S19. Kearns, G. S.: An electronic commerce strategic typology:

insights from case studies. 42(7), pp.1023-1036, October

2005.

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