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Drawing on the knowledge-based view, this study investigates how IT–business alignment influences business model design via organizational learning and examines the moderating role of data-driven culture in the relationship between IT–business alignment and business model design via organizational learning.

Using multi-respondent survey data collected from 597 Chinese firms, mediation and moderated mediation analyses were used to examine this study's hypotheses.

The mediation test results revealed organizational learning served as a mediator between IT–business alignment and two types of business model design (i.e. novelty- and efficiency-centered). In addition, data-driven culture strengthened the indirect effects of IT–business alignment on these two types of business model design via organizational learning.

This study extends current understandings of the relationship between IT–business alignment and business model design by revealing the mediating role of organizational learning and investigating its indirect effects under various degrees of data-driven culture. As such, it contributes to the literature on the business model and IT–business alignment and provides insights for managers seeking to achieve the expected business model design.

This study intends to reveal how to manage the dynamic process of information technology business (IT-business) strategic alignment; managing this alignment is an unknown yet critical issue that must be addressed by any firm trying to unleash the business value of their IT investments.

This study presents our case study of a healthcare organization after healthcare information systems (HIS) implementation and investigates the strategic alignment between the implemented HIS and the organizational strategy from a dynamic perspective.

Two different patterns of alignment (i.e. an IT-strategy–driven pattern and a business-strategy–driven pattern) are identified, and a process model of the IT-business strategic alignment is developed. Moreover, this study focuses on the social dimension of strategic alignment and examines the role of this dimension, which is critical and fundamental with respect to other dimensions, in achieving strategic alignment.

This paper makes important theoretical contributions to the understanding of strategic alignment by taking a dynamic view of alignment, identifying different patterns of alignment, emphasizing the role of social alignment and developing a comprehensive process model.

From a managerial perspective, managers should periodically scrutinize the IT-business alignment patterns of their organizations and develop dynamic capabilities for strategic alignment.

While most of the literature on the dynamics of strategic alignment have focused on confirming the dynamics of strategic alignment and identifying the factors that create dynamics in alignment, this study examines IT-business alignment as a continuous process over time, thus providing a novel perspective. Moreover, while the role of social alignment and its impact on downstream performance remain unclear in the current literature, this study incorporates the social dimension of alignment to investigate the role of this dimension in achieving IT-business strategic alignment.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The purpose of this study is to develop a framework for evaluating business‐IT alignment. Specifically, the authors emphasize internal business‐IT alignment between business and IS groups, which is a typical setting in recent boundary‐less, networked business environments.

Based on the previous studies, a socio‐technical approach was developed to explain how the functional integration in the business‐IT alignment process could be accomplished in collaborative environments. The study investigates the relationship among social alignment, technical alignment, IS effectiveness, and business performance.

The results indicated that alignment between business and IS groups increased IS effectiveness and business performance. Business‐IT alignment resulting from socio‐technical arrangements in firms' infrastructure has positive impacts on business performance.

This study is limited by control issues in terms of the impact of the confounding variables on business performance. Future studies need to validate the research model across industries. The study results imply that business‐IT alignment is a multidimensional concept that includes social and technical activities explaining the way people and information technology institutionalize business value.

By establishing a socio‐technical framework of business‐IT alignment, this study proposes a conceptual framework for business‐IT alignment that accounts for not only improved technical performance, but also improved human performance as well. This study emphasizes the importance of addressing internal socio‐technical collaboration in modern business environments.

In the era of the digital economy, organizations are under much pressure to justify their information technology (IT) spending on digital transformation. Some organizations have thus implemented IT chargeback, an IT governance (ITG) mechanism, to clarify and allocate IT costs among various business units. While practitioners have stressed the importance of IT chargeback, there has been little theoretical effort that investigates its strategic effects and boundary conditions.

Synthesizing the ITG literature and the resource-based view (RBV), the authors develop a research model to examine if IT chargeback affects IT–business strategic alignment and, in turn, organizational performance and how human IT resources strengthen the impacts of IT chargeback. The authors designed a survey to collect data from 103 firms and tested the model using partial least squares (PLS).

The authors found that IT chargeback promoted strategic alignment and then organizational performance only for firms with business-competent chief information officers (CIOs), rather than IT-competent business executives.

This study enriches the ITG literature by exploring the strategic value of an IT cost governance mechanism (i.e. IT chargeback). This study further proposes and validates a measure of IT chargeback. Drawing on the RBV, this study quantitatively investigates the strategic impacts and boundary contingencies of IT chargeback. This study also advances the CIO literature by identifying the strategic leading role, instead of the traditional supporting role, of CIOs in modern organizations.

Despite the conceptual, empirical and theoretical advances in alignment–performance relationship, there is a limited research on the alignment dimensions and organizational performance measures. Though strategic alignment is believed to improve organizational performance, the purpose of this paper is to develop conjectures for understanding how different alignment dimensions influence organizational performance measures.

The data were acquired from 161 senior IT and business managers paired responses in China and were analyzed by using a structural equation modeling technique.

The hypothesized relationships are largely supported. Thus, quality-oriented strategic alignment dimension has a significant relationship with all performance measures. Contrary to expectations, both product and marketing-oriented strategic alignment dimensions do not show a significant impact on financial return. The marketing-oriented strategic alignment dimension also has an insignificant relationship with operational excellence.

This study suggests that the business–IT alignment can be dimensioned to better combine business strategy and IT strategy. Hence, managers can focus specific alignment dimension instead of entire strategies of a firm for a better decision making.

Findings suggest guidance for formulating combined business and IT strategic alignment into dimensions and proposing insightful and practical implications.

This study aims to test a model in which the effect of strategic information technology (IT)-business alignment capability (hereafter referred to as “strategic alignment”) on organizational performance is examined via the mediating role of organizational agility [studied as operational adjustment agility (OAA) and market capitalizing agility (MCA)] along with the moderating influence of environmental uncertainty.

The research uses survey data accumulated from 220 managers (IT and bank managers) working in the regional rural banks of Odisha, India. A structural equation modelling approach is used to investigate the strategic alignment-performance relationship.

The findings demonstrate the positive effect of strategic alignment on agility (studied as OAA and MCA). This paper finds the positive effects of strategic alignment and both OAA and MCA on organizational performance. The moderation analysis reveals that in an uncertain environment, strategic alignment has more impact on MCA than OAA. However, the test of mediation exhibits OAA as a more significant mediator promoting the strategic alignment-performance linkage, than MCA. This was further validated from the moderated-mediation analysis.

Although previous research studies (mostly conducted in the context of developed countries) have reported about the positive strategic alignment-agility-performance linkages, yet the literature is silent regarding the influence of external contingent factors on these relationships from a rural banking perspective in a developing country setting (such as India). The research extends the strategic alignment-agility-performance theories and provides empirical support for these unique associations in the context of rural banking in India and thereby, greatly contributes to the existing strategic alignment literature.

This study seeks to examine the impact of owner's knowledge of information technology (IT) on business and IT strategic alignment, as well as on IT use in the small firm context, using the resource‐based view as a theoretical foundation.

A random sample of 217 small manufacturers and financial services firms in the USA answered a two‐page survey containing questions pertaining to the company's business strategies, the extent IT supported each business strategy, types of IT used, and the level of owner's IT knowledge.

Owner's knowledge of IT was found to be a significant predictor of IT strategic alignment, as well as adoption of traditional IT and internet technologies, while controlling for differences in firm attributes (size, age, industry affiliation, and strategic focus).

Small firm owners are well advised to seek ways of improving their knowledge of IT, integrating IT use in firm‐level business planning, as well as reexamining their business strategy and IT use to detect and correct misalignments, if any.

From the resource‐based view, the owner's IT knowledge is a critical resource that cannot be easily codified, hence less susceptible to competitive erosion, since it is embedded in the owner's tacit knowledge and expressed in the unique but complementary use of IT in support of the firm's strategic goals. This study confirmed small firm owner's knowledge of IT as an important, knowledge‐based capability and a vital component of business‐IT strategic alignment.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate and compare the influence of three strategy‐making modes (planned, adaptive and entrepreneurial) on IT‐business strategy alignment in small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs).

Empirical research using a questionnaire was conducted. In total, 108 SME owners and managers participated in the study and the data were analysed using quantitative techniques.

The planned mode provided better results as predicted. Each strategy‐making mode was found to influence certain specific aspects of alignment and performance. For instance the planned mode ensures better understanding of business and IT objectives and provides high growth sales. The adaptive mode encourages participation of stakeholders in planning and improves communication and staff productivity. The entrepreneurial mode can facilitate immediate revision of plans in organizations operating in dynamic and competitive environment.

Many factors influencing alignment were excluded. Second, the study was conducted in only three provinces and excluded the views of staff and IT personnel. These limit generalization of findings.

Assistance in planning and access to support programmes are necessary. Understanding the impact of SME characteristics can also assist the government in prioritizing resource allocations and focusing development programmes. The inconclusive results of this study, the impact on alignment of practices such as corporate governance, use of the balanced scorecard, and affirmative action should be researched further.

This was the first attempt to investigate the relationship between strategy‐making practices and IT alignment in South African SMEs. It provides empirical evidence confirming that these practices influence specific aspects of alignment and performance. SME managers can adopt the approach used to identify practices that ensure better alignment.

This study aims to test a model in which the effect of strategic information technology (IT)-business alignment on organizational agility is examined by the moderating influence of environmental uncertainty.

This research utilizes a matched-pair survey data collected from 300 IT and business executives working in various privately owned Indian financial enterprises, and structural equation modeling is used to examine the alignment–agility linkage.

The analysis demonstrates the positive effect of alignment on agility (studied as business process and market responsive agilities), and alignment is more effective on business process agility than market responsive agility. However, the moderation analysis reveals that in a highly uncertain environment, alignment has more effect on market responsive agility but not on business process agility.

Although previous studies (mostly conducted in the context of developed countries) have reported about the positive IT-business alignment and organizational agility linkage, the literature is silent regarding the influence of external contingent factors on this relationship from a developing country perspective. The authors have conceptualized alignment on the basis of strategic alignment maturity model and meticulously examined its relationship with both categories of agility. This research extends the alignment-agility theory and provides empirical support for this unique association from a developing country (i.e. India) perspective, and thereby, greatly contributes to the alignment literature.