The alignment of business and information strategies

Deposited with permission of the author. © 1990 Dr. Marianne Broadbent.The aim of this study was to explore the nature and extent of the alignment of business and information strategies, and organisational factors which might be related to that alignment. The study was undertaken in two parts: an extensive literature analysis to identify possible factors and models of alignment, followed by empirical case study based research examining factors which might be related to the alignment of business and information strategy in some large information intensive organizations. The conceptual frameworks for the study were drawn from the literatures of strategy development, organizational design, and theories and practices of information systems and services. The literature review and analysis for this study was purposely extensive in order to encompass a wide range of conceptual and research based literatures about the management of information systems and services which inform the study. the literature review revealed burgeoning interest in the area of business and information strategy alignment from different, though often narrow, paradigms. At the same time there was plenty of rigorous, empirically based and cumulative studies of direct relevance to the research question. Areas of potential importance to the alignment of business and information strategy, drawn from the conceptual and research based literature, were examined in a hypothesis-generating empirical case study analysis of four of Australia’s five largest firms in the financial services sector