focuses on the strategic level and functional level
(Aversano et al., 2013). The strategic level
alignment concerns if organisation’s goals, activities
and processes are in harmony with the information
systems that support them. Jabbari Sabegh and
Motlagh (2012) conclude that IT resource
management, performance management, knowledge
sharing, IT architecture and IT infrastructure are the
five aspects contributing to the strategic alignment.
On the other hand, the functional alignment focuses
on optimizing the effectiveness of IT systems
supporting business processes. The functional or
operational alignment is equally important as it is
one of key success factors of business-IT alignment
for an organisation. Baker and Niederman (2013)
discover that one of the key failures in mergers and
acquisitions is the misalignment at the operational
level. Henderson and Venkatraman (1993) propose
a strategic alignment model (SAM) in which there
are four areas, aligning with each other in two
dimensions, the strategic fit and functional
integration. The strategic fit is the alignment
between external and internal domains. The external
domain concerns about external factors that
influence the organisation such as economy, market
trend, competitors, regulations, and technologies.
The internal domain focuses on operational factors
in an organisation such as organisational structure,
business processes, business functions and
information technology. Functional integration is the
unification of the organisational functions and IT
functions.
It is vital to understand what business and
information systems alignment is and how to obtain
and maintain the alignment, but at the same time not
neglecting how to correct the misalignment
(Carvalho and Sousa, 2008, Pereira and Sousa,
2003). Aversano et al. (2013) suggest three aspects
for business-IT alignment: modelling, alignment
evaluation and evolution execution. The business-IT
alignment should have at least one of these aspects
in order to ensure that it is useful and applicable.
Modelling defines various alignment entities and
relationship between business and IT in order to
achieve the best alignment in an organisation. The
alignment evaluation aspect targets on assessing the
level of alignment between business and IT. The
third aspect, evolution execution is to improve the
degree of alignment in the case that the level of
alignment does not satisfy the needs of an
organisation. According to Aversano et al., (2012),
this aspect is still open for further research.
2.2 Organisational and Process
Alignment
Organisational alignment is the alignment that looks
at the extent to which strategy, structure, and culture
for creating the environment that facilitates the
achievement of organisational goals (Sender, 1997).
This alignment helps an organisation to create an
efficient internal environment to achieve better
cooperation and performance by removing internal
obstacles. Kathuria et al. (2007) define two types of
organisational alignments: vertical and horizontal
alignment. Vertical alignment refers to the alignment
of business strategies from a management level then
cascaded to other organisational departments.
Horizontal alignment refers to the cross-
departmental or intra-departmental integration.
The purpose of process alignment is to ensure the
harmonisation of various processes and activities in
an organisation to work in order to achieve common
goals (Weiser, 2000). Process alignment consists of
three dimensions of alignment (Hung et al., 2010):
1) structural alignment, 2) strategic alignment and,
3) IT alignment. Structural alignment aims to
organise responsibilities and to provide linkages
between business units or departments so that the
employees can cooperate with each other coherently
(Daft, 2000). Strategic alignment is about external-
internal alignment. IT alignment is the integration of
business functions with IT systems. IT systems must
be carefully integrated with the operational
processes within an organisation in order to make
the best performance in an organisation (Gagnon and
Dragon, 1998).
2.3 Organisational Operating Model
An organisational operating model is the necessary
level of business process integration and
standardisation for delivery goods and services to
customers (Ross et al., 2006). Different companies
have different degrees of process integration and
process standardisation that suits their organisational
operating model. The organisational operating
model is a matrix of two dimensions: business
process integration and business process
standardization. The aim of process integration is to
share information across business units in order to
increase efficiency and collaboration. Process
standardisation produces the same outcome from a
particular process in regardless of who is performing
it and where it is completed.
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