Improving Strategic Alignment: A Case Study

This study aims at providing organizations with new insight on how IT governance practices impact strategic alignment. The research is conducted as an in-depth case study in a large, multinational manufacturing and service company. The case reveals that improving IT governance practices is not sufficient to achieve high alignment, when the understanding of strategic value of IT is lacking. Improved alignment would require that IT is perceived as a strategic function in the organization and the IT governance treated accordingly. Bringing business and IT socially and culturally closer to each other is also required, but improving alignment on the social and cultural dimensions is dependent on the existence of the strategic direction: achieving alignment is difficult without common objectives between business and IT people. In general, the study illustrates limited impact of IT governance practices on alignment without requisite strategic direction.