Samspelet mellan IT-avdelning och verksamhet : En studie av hur koordination påverkas av strukturer och social interaktion

Several surveys indicate that corporate leaders still consider the aligning of IT and business functions as a top management issue. The aim of this thesis is to illustrate how coordination emerges between IT and business departments and how formal structures intended to coordinate are influenced by human action. To deepen the understanding of this phenomenon we seek to analyze IT/business coordination from a perspective based on practice theory. A field study was conducted where observations and informal interviews were carried out at the IT department of a global company. The empirical analysis indicate that coordination problems between IT and business departments is in part affected by embedded factors such as different goals and perspectives on how IT is to be used in the organization or how to design IT related processes. Our findings suggest that social interaction plays an important role for coordination. It can enhance existing formal structures or create new structures, which improve the possibilities to coordinate between IT and business departments. Our findings also show how formal structures such as cross-functional roles can constitute conditions to initiate social interaction. The results can be used as indicators for how to enhance coordination between IT and business departments