Title
Unraveling the Alignment Paradox: How Does Business-IT Alignment Shape Organizational Agility?
Abstract
AbstractContradictory 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.
Year
DOI
Venue
2017
10.1287/isre.2017.0711
Periodicals
Keywords
Field
DocType
business value of IT, questionnaire surveys, strategic management of IT, inertia, emergent coordination
Information system,Survey data collection,Economics,Strategic alignment,Social dimension,Knowledge management,Business-IT alignment
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
28
4
1526-5536
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
4
0.38
44
Authors
4
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Huigang Liang1211466.80
Nianxin Wang2985.34
Yajiong Xue3196161.35
Shilun Ge4196.31