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For the last four decades, the alignment of strategy and digital technology has persisted as one of the most critical and bothersome issues for senior government executives. Against this backdrop and drawing on the fruits of an extended program of collaborative research between 1995 and 2020, this chapter draws attention to how government organizations foster effective alignment and how this is achieved through four distinct cycles of alignment work. Considering that this work is heavily people- and organization-centric, the chapter calls for greater involvement of organization development and change scholars and practitioners in this important area of organizational life and work.

Drawing on established alignment and architectural theory, this paper seeks to present the argument that an organisation's enterprise architecture can enable the alignment of business strategy and information systems and technology (IS/IT).

The paper presents a detailed case study of the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), where a high degree of alignment and international recognition of excellence in business and enabling IS/IT performance are documented.

The ABS enterprise architecture was developed in 1999‐2001 and describes the organisation's physical business and IS/IT elements, and the connective relationships that inform the alignment condition. The ABS architecture is robustly holistic in form, and is characterised by a strong and equal focus on business operations, the deliberate inclusion of an IS/IT governance framework, the structuring and hosting of corporate information for business delivery, and the efficient reuse of IS/IT components.

The ABS case study also examined empirically the social aspects and formal mechanisms of organisational alignment, and shows how a formal enterprise architecture mechanism can integrate into a successful alignment process.

Information systems (IS) strategic alignment is a significant chief information officers (CIO) and top management issue because of its impact on a firm’s performance and profitability. Previous studies have primarily examined informal dimension’s influence on IS strategic alignment. Nevertheless, a few research works have emphasised cultural dimension’s effect. The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate and bring out organisational culture’s influence on IS strategic alignment. Notably, it highlights the most significant culture types, according to the Competing Value Framework (Cameron et al., 2006).

Empirical setting comprises a quantitative approach using a survey based on a sample of 160 business managers (BMs) of 53 large companies located in Tunisia with international activities and being in the post-implementation operational use phase of their enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. The partial least square (PLS) method has been used for data analysis.

The results provide an empirical evidence supporting a positive and significant organisational culture’s influence on the IS strategic alignment. The findings also show that “Clan Culture” (Internal/Flexibility-oriented culture) positively influences IS alignment along with the strategic priorities. These findings provide guidance and help understand how, through clan culture, the company can contribute significantly to the success of its ERP systems strategic alignment during the most critical phase, namely, post-implementation.

Despite abundant work related to IS alignment topic, little research, to the authors’ knowledge, has been undertaken in considering organisational culture’s influence. Thus, this research aims to fill this gap and to raise new questions about IS alignment. First, this study puts together organisational culture (through the Competing values Framework) and strategic alignment (through the IS use dimension) in a single research model to analyse four culture types’ direct effect on IS alignment. Second, this study is innovative in its use of the ERP post-implementation as an empirical framework. The post-implementation phase is often played down in research work in favour of the upstream pre-implementation phases. Furthermore, the findings bring together theoretical and practical insights on both IS-business strategic alignment and ERP post-implementation. Thus, future research could emphasise the role of clan culture in the efficiency of ERP systems strategic alignment during the usage phase. Building on these findings, BM, CIO and top management are advised to promote this culture type based on communication, information sharing and the spirit of internal partnership – so that their ERP systems are used appropriately and aligned with the company’s strategic priorities.

The purpose of this paper is to find alignment concerns (e.g. requirements, restrictions and issues) and addressing them into the design and development of domain-specific information systems (ISs) supporting product manufacturing.

The approach is based on two metamodels of the Strategic Alignment Model that formalise its underlying concepts. The metamodels are used to build specific alignment models that define the elements to be aligned and the corresponding alignment sequences. The models and alignment sequences are intended to guide the design and development of an “aligned” domain-specific IS. An industrial case study for the manufacturing industry shows the feasibility of this approach.

The instantiation of the alignment models components with information about the specific-domain IS project enabled us to deal with current and future concerns into the design of ISs aligned with the manufacturing strategy and infrastructures.

IS alignment is generally tackled at a strategic level, in this paper the operational and tactical levels are also addressed.

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.

The paper seeks to investigate how the information assurance (IA) efforts of organisations should be aligned with their business strategy. From this analysis, a conceptual model of alignment is presented. This framework shows several organisational factors that can influence alignment.

A number of published works on alignment are discussed in order to develop a conceptual model of IA fit. In addition, Venkatraman's six perspectives of alignment are used as a framework to suggest future research in this area.

The paper presents a definition of information assurance and proposes various reasons why IA is a strategic issue and should be aligned with both IT and corporate strategy. From the literature, a conceptual model illustrating the variables that can influence alignment is presented.

A clear conceptualisation of alignment is needed. Six potential research models and associated research questions are proposed.

The paper concludes with a number of management and research implications. In looking at the implications for managers, it is argued that any alignment framework should include adequate metrics for checking the strategic fit on a continuous basis.

This paper is an initial attempt to fulfil an identified gap in the literature, namely the lack of research undertaken on IA and corporate strategy alignment. It offers practical help for management so that they can improve the fit between IA and business strategy. It also offers several avenues of potential future research using Venkatraman's six perspectives of fit.

Smart city services are supported by information and communication technologies (ICT) referred to as digital technologies which increasingly promise huge opportunities for growth but are faced with system alignment and data integration issues when providing digital services. Therefore, this study aims to use enterprise architecture (EA) in digital transformation of cities by developing an architecture to address system alignment and data integration in digital transformation of cities.

Qualitative method is applied to evaluate the presented architecture based on electric-mobility (e-mobility) scenario, and data was collected using case study via interviews from a municipality in Norway to validate the applicability of EA for digital transformation of city services.

Findings from the interviews were represented in ArchiMate language to model the digital transformation of e-mobility in smart cities. Findings suggest that the architecture serves as a guide to recommend urban administrators of the potential of EA and digital transformation in addressing system alignment and data integration issues in smart cities.

Data used in this study is from a single case, hence there is a need to evaluate the application of EA for digital transformation of city services with data collected from multi-cases.

This study adopts enterprise architecture approach to support city transformation as it has been widely applied by institutions to align business and ICT components.

This study provides implication on how municipalities can use EA and digital transformations towards a sustainable smart city.

An architecture is presented that can be used as a guide to help urban developers and designers in deploying sustainable transport policies for smart cities. Additionally, EA is used to foster digitalization towards achieving system alignment and data integration in cities to support urban environment as they digitally transform services provided to citizens.

The purpose of this paper is to develop “techno‐change alignment” as an approach for evaluating the effectiveness of large‐scale technology‐enabled organisational change, commonly associated with the adoption of enterprise information systems (IS).

By developing a processual analysis of techno‐change, useful insights are developed concerning techno‐change alignment, within the confines of an enterprise resource planning (ERP) case study. Recent techno‐change literature, emerging ideas on human agency, cultural and social relations are incorporated as part of the evaluation approach taken. The paper also discusses the implications of more recent work on techno‐change and suggests directions for future research.

In terms of “structural” alignment, the ERP system was chosen because it reflected requirements of the case study in the university/education sector. As part of “strategic and intellectual” alignment, business processes were reviewed, as well as alignment with university aims and strategy goals. “Social and cultural” alignment between different groups of users is paramount for effective integration and re‐embedding of relationships and activities once techno‐change is introduced. Wider implications of processual alignment suggest that bringing users and stakeholders together as human agents for techno‐change within a high priority communication environment is essential for developing effective social relationships.

Given the difficulty of developing usable evaluation mechanisms for techno‐change and complex enterprise information systems, the contribution of this article is the demonstration of an effective interpretative (processual) IS evaluation approach, which the authors refer to as “techno‐change alignment”.

This paper aims to proposes a framework, labeled strategic alignment matrix, to attain organizational alignment by integrating the horizontal dimension of performance (results driven by activities carried out by multiple organizational units) and the vertical one (results of single units) through the use of a sophisticated information structure composed by quantitative measures and management processes.

A science-based design approach was adopted. A review of the literature on strategic performance measurement systems (SPMS) and coordination allowed the identification of a set of design principles (guidelines reflecting the accumulated knowledge in the literature). The design principles guided the design of the proposed framework. The framework was tested in a tiles company on the new product development process.

Five design principles are presented for the design of a working SPMS as follows: to integrate the horizontal and vertical dimensions of performance; to have all the relevant information in one place (package); to understand how actors contribute to the overall performance; to favor the emergence of integrating conditions for coordination; and to enrich the role of quantitative non-financial information to attain inter-functional integration. During the test of the framework, managers highlighted the increased ability to coordinate actions and the existence of double-loop learning.

The model was tested in one organization. The study should be replicated in other contexts connecting the strategic alignment matrix to the budgeting and incentive systems.

Working at the interface between science and design helps to address the theory-practice gap that has been a priority in management studies for long.

This paper aims to investigate the alignment between the information‐processing needs and capabilities during interorganizational relationships through the lenses of both the product and the business relationships life cycle concepts, and the types of information exchanged.

This paper follows up on a previous empirical study conducted in the automotive sector, investigating the electronic collaboration within the supply chain of a large European Automotive Supplier (EAS). Out of the 61 respondents from this previous study, four illustrative cases are selected to further investigate their information alignment, where each case involves one specific relationship between EAS and its business partners based on the supply chain collaboration classification provided by the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA).

The conclusion is that the phenomenon is bimodal and requires that the different information‐processing needs and capabilities associated with each stage of both the product and the business relationships life cycles should be considered.

The small number of illustrative cases and the specificity of the chosen sector limit the generalizability of the results. Without considering the various types of information‐processing needs and capabilities as well as the stage of both product and business relationships life cycles, a biased conclusion could lead to inappropriate information and communication technology investments and business decisions.

The richness of the cases and the genuine integration of the life cycle concepts and the type of information with the notion of alignment help to identify some key aspects of interorganizational relationships.