A Process for Strategic Positioning in IT Management

The management of IT in a corporate context has evolved from technology provider to service partner of the business. To help understand the resulting changes in IT management, this paper presents a grounded theory explaining the process and the effects of strategically positioning an IT department as part of strategy development in IT management.We use a set of three case studies for building our suggested theory for explanation. In uncovering the theory and its constituents from our empirical material, we follow a grounded theory approach.Our research introduces social dynamics in the group of IT executives participating in strategic positioning as an important and novel determinant of planning and im-plementation success. Introducing a detailed process description, our process theory highlights how strategic positioning is currently approached and what effects unfold as a result.Our research helps to better understand how the contemporary role of IT in business has impacted strategizing and managing in the IT context. It shows that IT manage-ment becomes more and more emancipated and that research beyond the content of strategy can help to better understand the success of IT management. This, in turn, can help practitioners to improve their management approaches to better align their IT departments and increase their value contribution