Business and IT Alignment in Higher Education Sector
Volume 3, Issue 1 HASSAN ALGHAMDI, LILY SUN
Published online:22 February 2017
Article Views: 50
Abstract
This paper aims to provide an overview of business and IT alignment as a serious and challenging issue facing business and IT managers in many public and private organizations today. It also discusses the importance of addressing this challenging issue in the higher education sector, which has received the lowest attention in business and IT alignment
research compared with other public and private sectors. A critical review of the literature, an in-depth analysis of IT in business, its challenges, and prospects is carried out in this study. Studies show that, although it has been studied for almost five decades, the complexity of this issue seems to be steadily increasing along with the rapid changes in the business and IT environments. Since business and IT, alignment has been and continues to be a major challenge for researchers and practitioners thus, suggestions for possible future business and IT alignment research in the higher education sector are offered.
Reference
J. C. Henderson and H. Venkatraman, “Strategic alignment: Leveraging information technology for transforming organizations,” IBM Systems Journal, vol. 32, no. 1, pp. 472-484, 1993.
M. Queiroz, T. Coltman, R. Sharma, P. Tallon and P. Reynolds, “Strategic IT alignment: An evaluation and process-level reconceptualization of the construct,” in Academy of Management Annual Meeting: The Informal Economy, Boston, MA, pp. 1-32, August 3-7, 2012
A. Karpovsky and R. D. Galliers, “Aligning in practice: From current cases to a new agenda,” Journal of Information Technology, vol. 30, no. 2, pp. 136-160, 2015.
Y. E. Chan, “Business strategy, information systems strategy, and strategic fit: Measurement and performance impacts,” Ph.D. dissertation, Western University, Ontario, Canada, 1992.
M. E. Porter, “What is strategy?” Harvard Business Review, vol. 74, no. 6, pp. 61-78, 1996.
N. Venkatraman, “The concept of fit in strategy research: Toward verbal and statistical correspondence,” Academy of Management Review, vol. 14, no. 3, pp. 423-444, 1989.
J. C. Henderson and N. Venkatraman, Strategic Alignment: A model for Organizational Transformation Through Information Technology. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1992.
T. Smaczny, “Is an alignment between business and information technology the appropriate paradigm to manage IT in today’s organisations?,” Management Decision, vol. 39. no. 10, pp. 797-802, 2001.
A. L. Lederer and A. L. Mendelow, “Issues in information systems planning,” Information & Management, vol. 10, no. 5, pp. 245-254, 1986.
M. Broadbent, Leveraging the New Infrastructure: How Market Leaders Capitalize on Information Technology. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press, 1998.
J. Luftman, Competing in the Information Age: Strategic Alignment in Practice. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1996.
C. U. Ciborra, 1997. “De profundis? Deconstructing the concept of strategic alignment,” Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems, vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 1-16.
Y. E. Chan and B. H. Reich, “IT alignment: What have we learned?,” Journal of Information Technology, vol. 22, no. 4, pp. 297-315, 2007.
T. Coltman, P. Tallon, R. Sharma and M. Queiroz, “Strategic IT alignment: Twenty-five years on,” Journal of Information Technology, vol. 30, no. 2, pp. 91-100, 2015.
B. H. Reich and I. Benbasat, “Measuring the linkage between business and information technology objectives,” MIS Quarterly, vol. 20, no.1, pp. 55-81, 1996.
G. S. Kearns and A. L. Lederer, “A resourcebased view of strategic IT alignment: How knowledge sharing creates competitive advantage,” Decision Sciences, vol. 34, no. 1, pp. 1-29, 2003.
A. Silvius, B. De Waal and J. Smit, “Business and IT alignment: Answers and remaining questions,” in Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems, PACIS, Hyderabad, India, 2009.
P. Reynolds and P. Yetton, “Aligning business and IT strategies in multi-business organizations,” Journal of Information Technology, vol. 30, no. 2, pp. 101-118, 2015.
H. T. Wagner and T. Weitzel, “Operational IT business alignment as the missing link from IT strategy to firm success,” in 12th Americas Conference on Information Systems, AMCIS, 2006.
J. Luftman and R. Kempaiah, “An update on business-IT alignment: ‘A line’ has been drawn.” MIS Quarterly Executive, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 165-177, 2007.
J. Luftman and T. Ben-Zvi, “Key issues for IT executives 2009: Difficult economy’s impact on IT,” MIS Quarterly Executive, vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 203-213, 2010.
L. Kappelman, E. McLean, V. Johnson and N. Gerhart, “The 2014 SIM IT key issues and trends study,” MIS Quarterly Executive, vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 237-263, 2014.
M. E. Saputri and H. D. Mulyaningsih, “Blue Ocean strategy for creating value innovation: A study over Kedai digital in Yogyakarta, Indonesia,” Journal of Administrative and Business Studies, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 14-20, 2016.
A. Ullah and R. Lai, “A systematic review of business and information technology alignment,” ACM Transactions on Management Information Systems, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 1-30, 2013.
R. Maes, D. Rijsenbrij, O. Truijens and H. Goedvolk, “Redefining business: IT alignment through a unified framework,” Department of Information Management, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands, Working Paper No. 2000-
19, 2000.
R. S. Chen, C. M. Sun, M. M. Helms and W. J. K . Jih, “Aligning information technology and business strategy with a dynamic capabilities perspective: A longitudinal study of a Taiwanese semiconductor company,” International Journal of Information Management, vol. 28, no. 5, pp. 366-378, 2008.
P. P. Tallon and A. Pinsonneault, “Competing perspectives on the link between strategic information technology alignment and organizational agility: Insights from a mediation model,” MIS Quarterly, vol. 35, no. 2, pp. 463-486, 2011.
F. Schlosser, D. Beimborn, T. Weitzel and H. T. Wagner, “Achieving social alignment between business and ITan empirical evaluation of the efficacy of IT governance mechanisms,” Journal of Information Technology, vol. 30, no. 2, pp. 119-135, 2015.
J. W. Palmer and M. L. Markus, “The performance impacts of quick response and strategic alignment in specialty retailing,” Information Systems Research, vol. 11, no. 3, pp. 241-259, 2000.
J. E. Gerow, J. B. Thatcher and V. Grover, “Six types of IT-business strategic alignment: An investigation of the constructs and their measurement,” European Journal of Information Systems, vol. 24, no. 5, pp. 465-491, 2015.
W. Oh and A. Pinsonneault, “On the assessment of the strategic value of information technologies: Conceptual and analytical approaches,” MIS Quarterly, vol. 31, no. 2, pp. 239-265, 2007.
R. Sabherwal and Y. E. Chan, “Alignment between business and IS strategies: A study of prospectors, analyzers, and defenders,” Information Systems Research, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 11-33, 2001.
A. A. Yayla and Q. Hu, “The impact of IT-business strategic alignment on firm performance in a developing country setting: Exploring moderating roles of environmental uncertainty and strategic orientation,” European Journal of Information Systems, vol. 21, no. 4, pp. 373-387, 2012.
K. Liu and W. Li, Organisational Semiotics for Business Informatics. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2014.
J. Luftman and T. Brier, “Achieving and sustaining business-IT alignment,” California Management Review, vol. 42, no. 1, pp. 109-122, 1999.
J. N. Luftman, P. R. Lewis and S. H. Oldach, “Transforming the enterprise: The alignment of business and information technology strategies,” IBM Systems Journal, vol. 32, no. 1, pp. 198-221, 1993.
J. Coertze and R. Von Solms, “The board and CIO: the IT alignment challenge,” in Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS), Waikoloa, HI, January 06-09, 2014.
L. Plazaola, E. Silva, N. Vargas, J. Flores and M .Ekstedt, “A metamodel for strategic business and IT alignment assessment,” in 4th Annual Conference on Systems Engineering Research (CSER), Los Angeles, CA, April 6-9, 2006.
D. Rondinelli, B. Rosen and I. Drori, “The struggle for strategic alignment in multinational corporations: Managing readjustment during global expansion,” European Management Journal, vol. 19, no. 4, pp. 404-416, 2001.
M. Tarafdar and T. Ragu-Nathan, “Business information systems alignment,” in Planning for Information Systems, W. R. King, Ed. New York, NY: Routledge, 2015, pp. 34-67.
J. W. Weiss and D. Anderson, “Aligning technology and business strategy: Issues & frameworks, a field study of 15 companies,” in International Conference on System Sciences, January 5-8, 2004.
J. Luftman, R. Papp and T. Brier, “Enablers and inhibitors of business-IT alignment,” Communications of the AIS, vol. 1, no. 3, 1999.
E. Brynjolfsson, “The productivity paradox of information technology,” Communications of the ACM, vol. 36, no. 12, pp. 66-77, 1993.
J. V. Wellman and R. A. Phipps, “Funding the ‘infostructure’: A guide to financing technology infrastructure in higher education,” The Institute for Higher Education Policy, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 1-33, 2001.
R. Yanosky and J. McCredie. (2008). Process and politics: IT governance in higher education [Online]. Available https://goo.gl/x1Pkaq
F. Newman and J. E. Scurry, “Higher education and the digital Rapids,” International Higher Education, vol. 26, pp. 13-14, 2015.
L. Price, J. T. Richardson and A. Jelfs, “Facetoface versus online tutoring support in distance education,” Studies in Higher Education, vol. 32, no. 1, pp. 1-20, 2007.
J. T. Richardson, “Instruments for obtaining student feedback: A review of the literature,” Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, vol. 30, no. 4, pp. 387-415, 2005.
M. Deniz, “Role of information technology at university success,” in SGEM Conference on Psychology and Psychiatry, Sociology and Healthcare, Education, September 1-9, 2014.
R. B. Kvavik. (2005). Convenience, communications, and control: How students use technology [Online]. Available https://goo.gl/QWhnww
A. Lazinica and C. Calafate, Technology Education and Development. New York, NY: InTech, 2009.
A. Eriksmo and J. Sundberg, “Digital academia: How higher education is affected by digital technology,” Master’s dissertation, Umea University, Umea, Sweden, 2016.
J. Herron, “Augmented reality in medical education and training,” Journal of Electronic Resources in Medical Libraries, vol. 13, no. 2, pp. 1-5, 2016.
F. David and R. Abreu, “Information technology in education: Recent developments in higher education,” in Iberian Conference on Information Systems and Technologies (CISTI), June 18-21, 2014.
E. Dahlstrom, D. C. Brooks and J. Bichsel. (2014). The current ecosystem of learning management systems in higher education: Student, faculty, and IT perspectives [Online]. https://goo.gl/gTwudr
S. Tareen, “UoR application architecture,” Reading: University of Reading, Reading, UK, 2014.
J. A. Pirani and G. Salaway, “Information technology alignment in higher education,” EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research (ECAR) Roadmap, Colorado, CO, 2004
J. Luftman, “Assessing IT/business alignment,” Information Systems Management, vol. 20, no. 4, pp. 9-15, 2003.
A. J. Bytheway, G. Whyte and I. Ventez. (2015). Understanding IT management in higher education [Online]. Available: https://goo.gl/n18XBn
C. Tuller and D. Oblinger, “Information technology as a transformation agent,” Cause/Effect, vol. 23, no. 2, pp. 6-14, 1999.
S. H. Liu, H. L. Liao and J. A. Pratt, “Impact of media richness and flow on e-learning technology acceptance,” Computers & Education, vol. 52, no. 3, pp. 599-607, 2009.
T. Teo, “Modelling technology acceptance in education: A study of pre-service teachers,” Computers & Education, vol. 52, no. 2, pp. 302-312, 2009.
M. Spellings, A test of leadership: Charting the future of US higher education. Alexandria, VA: US Department of Education, 2006.
N. Vargas, L. Plazaola and J. Flores, “Constructing a general framework definition of the business and IT alignment concern through selected papers,” in Proceeding of Conference on Systems Engineering Research, Hoboken, NJ, March 14-16, 2007.
M. Broadbent and P. Weill, “Improving business and information strategy alignment: Learning from the banking industry,” IBM Systems Journal, vol. 32, no. 1, pp. 162-179, 1993.
P. W. Yetton and K. D. Johnston, “Competing forms of fit in a professional bureaucracy: IT management dilemmas,” International Journal of Healthcare Technology and Management, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 142-159, 2001.
A. Ullah and R. Lai, “Modeling business goal for business/IT alignment using requirements engineering,” Journal of Computer Information Systems, vol. 51, no. 3, pp. 21-28, 2011.
R. Abel, “Creating future,” Educause Review, vol. 42, no. 2, pp. 12-30, 2007.
S. De Haes and W. Van Grembergen, “Business/IT alignment,” in Enterprise Governance of Information Technology, S. DeHaes and W. Van Grembergen, Eds., New York, NY: Springer, 2015, pp. 45-70.
R. G. Sheets and S. Crawford, “Harnessing the power of information technology: Open business models in higher education,” Educause Review, vol. 47, no. 2, pp. 34-48, 2012.
S. Rijal, “The influence of transformational leadership and organizational culture on learning organization: A comparative analysis of the IT sector, Thailand,” Journal of Administrative and Business Studies, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 121-129, 2016.
To Cite this article
H. Alghamdi and L. Sun “Business and IT alignment in higher education sector,” International Journal of Technology and Engineering Studies, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 01-08, 2017