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Studies for over 30 years have consistently indicated that enterprise-level Business-Information Technology (IT) alignment is a pervasive problem. While significant progress has been made to understand alignment, research on IT alignment is still plagued by several problems. First, most alignment models approach alignment as a static relationship in contrast to analyzing the scope and variance of activities through which the alignment is (or can be) attained. Second, most alignment models are not founded on strong theoretical foundations. Third, because of their static view, these models do not guide how organizations can improve alignment. This study addresses these weaknesses using a capability-based lens. It formulates and operationalizes a formative construct rooted in the theory of dynamic capabilities and defines the scope and nature of activities that contribute to alignment. The construct identifies six dimensions promoting alignment: (1) IT-Business Communications; (2) Use of Value Analytics; (3) Approaches to Collaborative Governance; (4) Nature of the affiliation/partnership; (5) Scope of IT initiatives; and (6) Development of IT Skills. The construct measures are validated in terms of their dimensionality, item pool sampling, and the nomological and predictive validity. The research uses Partial Least Squares (PLS) to statistically validate the construct using a dataset covering over 3000 global participants including nearly 400 Fortune 1000 companies. All construct dimensions contribute significantly to the level of alignment and the construct shows strong nomological and predictive validity by demonstrating a statistically significant impact on firm performance. Scholars can leverage this research to explore additional activity-based constructs of IT-business alignment.

Purpose: This study explores the barriers to adopting Industry 4.0 technologies within the pharmaceutical manufacturing sector. Despite the potential for transformative benefits, the sector has been slow in embracing these technologies due to unique regulatory and operational challenges. This paper seeks to understand these challenges in greater depth by analyzing key obstacles that pharmaceutical companies face during their digital transformation efforts.Design/methodology/approach: A mixed-methods approach was employed, combining maturity assessments with insights from in-depth interviews with key stakeholders in the pharmaceutical industry. The study identifies and categorizes the main barriers to Industry 4.0 adoption, providing a sector-specific analysis.Findings: The primary barriers to Industry 4.0 adoption in pharmaceutical manufacturing were found to be \"prioritization and strategic alignment,\" \"technological challenges,\" and \"financial constraints.\" Contrary to common assumptions in the literature, \"regulatory and compliance challenges\" were perceived as less impactful by stakeholders, as these are often ingrained in routine operations.Research limitations/implications: The research focuses on a single pharmaceutical manufacturing company, which may limit generalizability. However, as the company operates within the broader pharmaceutical industry as a contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO), the findings could reflect broader industry dynamics.Practical implications: Pharmaceutical companies should prioritize overcoming strategic and technological barriers to facilitate Industry 4.0 adoption. Clear leadership direction, strategic alignment, and addressing interoperability challenges are critical for successful digital transformation in the sector.Originality/value: This study provides a novel contribution by offering a detailed analysis of barriers to Industry 4.0 adoption specific to the pharmaceutical manufacturing sector. It challenges the traditional view of regulatory hurdles as the primary obstacle, emphasizing the increasing integration of regulatory management into daily operations and shifting the focus toward overcoming technological and strategic challenges.

The strategic alignment allows coordinating objectives, processes, resources, personnel and critical factors in order to make decision making viable, in addition, it allows aligning processes with the organization's strategy. The objective of the research is: to evaluate the strategic alignment between the processes and the strategic objectives in the Matanzas Provincial Sports Directorate. Tools such as: brainstorming, Kendall's Method, SWOT Matrix, Hierarchical Analytical Process were used. As results, the calculation of the strategic alignment index were obtained with a value of 7.13 and the index of alignment of relevant processes with 6.46, finding that organization is located in the first quadrant of the matrix, which means that the processes of the sports organization are aligned with the strategic objectives, 11 actions are recommended to mitigate the deficiencies detected and to continue with the deployment of the strategy for the Olympic cycle, which shows that the strategic alignment helps collaboration within the sports organization.

A well-developed measurement scale is worthwhile for developing a theory and assessing a specific activity within a firm. In the past, many studies investigated the alignment between information technology (IT) and business strategy and knowledge management (KM) strategy. However, currently, there needs to be a scale for measuring KM and IT alignment maturity in nature, resulting in a research gap. Therefore, the main purpose of this present study is to empirically develop and examine an instrument to measure KM-IT strategic alignment maturity. Following the scale development procedure, reliability, exploratory factor analysis, and confirmation factor analysis are employed to validate the instrument. According to the 3 stage empirical data collections from companies in Taiwan, finally, a revision containing 35 items that include 6 sub-constructs for measuring the maturity of KM-IT strategic alignment is generated, namely communications maturity, value maturity, governance maturity, partnership maturity, technology scope maturity, and skills maturity. These assessment criteria can provide practitioners and researchers for understanding and assessing the characteristics and status of KM-IT strategic alignment maturity.

Over the last decades, the role of the IT department within an organization has gradually gained importance. Technology has permeated all areas within organizations and nowadays is the cornerstone of almost all business processes. Thus, business-IT alignment (BITA) is considered an essential success factor for almost any organization. Consequently, the evaluation and improvement of this alignment have been a growing concern among researchers and organizations. This study assessed the BITA maturity in a Colombian university, applying Luftman’s SAM (Strategic Alignment Maturity) model. The conducted assessment collected, analyzed, and contrasted perceptions of business and IT personnel. Similarly, we investigated the personnel’s perceptions at the strategic, functional, and operational levels regarding the SAM factors. Furthermore, we compared our results with other BITA assessments in educational institutions, Latin American organizations, and worldwide results. Finally, we drew some conclusions that can be useful for practitioners who seek to apply Luftman’s assessment.

Despite the huge investment in Knowledge Management (KM) initiatives by many organizations, KM projects are facing a high failure rate. One of the main reasons is the lack of alignment between business and KM strategies. This study aims to identify and prioritize the factors affecting strategic alignment between business and KM strategies. A comprehensive literature review integrated with the focus group method was used to identify and classify effective factors of KM strategic alignment. Next, a survey method was conducted to evaluate and prioritize the extracted factors suggested by the experts. Further, the sign test was used to analyze the priorities of these factors using Shannon’s entropy method. The results reveal that the key factors affecting strategic alignment between business strategies and KM include knowledge-based culture, KM governance, and strategic approach to KM, communication between KM and business, top management support, human resource capabilities, environmental and competitive factors and IT management capabilities. The findings provide a comprehensive KM-business strategic framework.

Research examining the relationship between IT–business strategic alignment (hereafter referred to as alignment) and firm performance (hereafter referred to as performance) has produced apparently conflicting findings (i.e., an alignment paradox). To examine the alignment paradox, we conducted a meta-analysis that probed the interrelationships between alignment, performance, and context constructs. We found the alignment dimensions (intellectual, operational, and cross-domain) demonstrate unique relationships with the different performance types (financial performance, productivity, and customer benefit) and with many of the other constructs in alignment’s nomological network. All mean corrected correlations between dimensions of alignment and dependent variables were positive and most of the credibility interval values in these analyses were also positive. Overall, the evidence gathered from the extant literature suggests there is not much of an alignment paradox. This study contributes to the literature by clarifying the relationships between alignment and performance outcomes and offering insight into sources of inconsistencies in alignment research. By doing so, this paper lays a foundation for more consistent treatment of alignment in future IT research.

Purpose: To explore the impacts of IT infrastructure flexibility components (connectivity, modularity, compatibility, and IT personnel flexibility) on IT-business strategic alignment using Luftman’s strategic alignment maturity model. Design/methodology/approach: A questionnaire was developed using 5-points Likert scale. The questionnaire was distributed to companies in Indonesia, where 48 companies filled the questionnaire completely. The data were analyzed using partial least squares (PLS) approach using WarpPLS version 3.0. Findings: This research found that amongst four components of IT infrastructure flexibility, only compatibility that gives a positive and significant impact to IT-business strategic alignment. This finding is remarkably in contrast to what had been found by Chung et al (2003) in which connectivity, modularity and IT personnel flexibility showed a positive impact on strategic alignment while compatibility did not. Research limitations: This research used small sample size. More respondents are required to obtain more general conclusions. Practical implications: The findings of this study can be input for IT investment initiatives by first focusing on compatibility aspect of IT infrastructure which is considered having the most significant influence on strategic alignment. Originality/value: Previous study investigated IT infrastructure flexibility as a single concept, whereas our research investigated the components of IT infrastructure flexibility and their impact on strategic alignment.

The alignment between a firm’s business and information technology (IT) strategies continues to be important for research and practice. Prior research investigating the performance consequences of strategic IT alignment (SITA) has produced inconsistent results. This paper distinguishes between two roles of SITA: (1) as a state of congruence between business and IT, which is the primary focus of empirical studies, and (2) as reflecting a capability that may enable or inhibit the leveraging of IT investments, as has been discussed theoretically but not examined empirically. Based on the resource-based view (RBV), IT investment (ITI) is explicitly included as the resource that SITA as a capability can inherently help leverage. Also based on RBV, we argue that environmental uncertainty, which is examined in terms of dynamism, complexity, and munificence, moderates the effect of SITA on the relationship between ITI and firm performance. The research model is tested through panel-data analyses of data from 1999–2008, including 758 firm-year observations from 242 firms. This study is the first to find that SITA as a state directly improves firm performance even when considering ITI and its interaction with SITA. Moreover, the effect of the interaction between SITA and ITI on firm performance increases with an increase in environmental dynamism or complexity and with a decrease in environmental munificence. We also find that the effect of the interaction between SITA and ITI can be negative under some environments. Specifically, the results suggest that (1) in dynamic, complex, and hostile environments, SITA does reflect a capability that enhances the positive effect of ITI on firm performance, but (2) in stable, simple, and munificent environments, SITA reflects a rigidity that reduces the positive effect of ITI on firm performance. The results are robust under a variety of statistical specifications and estimations.

Previous research has proposed different types for and contingency factors affecting information technology governance. Yet, in spite of this valuable work, it is still unclear through what mechanisms IT governance affects organizational performance. We make a detailed argument for the mediation of strategic alignment in this process. Strategic alignment remains a top priority for business and IT executives, but theory-based empirical research on the relative importance of the factors affecting strategic alignment is still lagging. By consolidating strategic alignment and IT governance models, this research proposes a nomological model showing how organizational value is created through IT governance mechanisms. Our research model draws upon the resource-based view of the firm and provides guidance on how strategic alignment can mediate the effectiveness of IT governance on organizational performance. As such, it contributes to the knowledge bases of both alignment and IT governance literatures. Using dyadic data collected from 131 Taiwanese companies (cross-validated with archival data from 72 firms), we uncover a positive, significant, and impactful linkage between IT governance mechanisms and strategic alignment and, further, between strategic alignment and organizational performance. We also show that the effect of IT governance mechanisms on organizational performance is fully mediated by strategic alignment. Besides making contributions to construct and measure items in this domain, this research contributes to the theory base by integrating and extending the literature on IT governance and strategic alignment, both of which have long been recognized as critical for achieving organizational goals.