Author Type

Graduate Student

Date of Award

2008

Document Type

Dissertation

Publication Status

Version of Record

Submission Date

October 2026

Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]

Hu, Qing

Abstract

Aligning information technology (lT) strategy with business strategy has been one of the top concerns of practitioners and scholars. Despite the documented positive effects of strategic alignment on organizational success, only few organizations consider themselves in alignment. Although numerous studies exist about IT-business alignment, the empirical studies based on strong theories have been rare in the alignment literature. This dissertation attempts to fulfill this gap by proposing and empirically validating a comprehensive strategic alignment model. Drawing on prior literature, we identified five antecedents of alignment; centralization, formalization , shared domain knowledge, successful IT history and relationship management. We further hypothesized that the effects of these antecedents are mediated by the drivers of alignment, which are conceptualized as the level of connection of lT and business planning and the level of communication between IT and business managers. Furthermore, the proposed research model investigated the moderating effects of goal commitment of business executives to achieving and sustaining strategic alignment and environmental uncertainty. The results showed that both drivers had significant effects on alignment, and the effect of connection is about twice that of communications. Our findings also support for the effects of all antecedents except centralization. Finally, we found partial support for the effects of moderating variables. Overall, the main contribution of this dissertation is the development and empirical validation of a comprehensive strategic alignment model with considerations for antecedents and potential moderating effects, thus extending the alignment literature by differentiating the effects of dimensions of environmental uncertainty as well as introducing the goal commitment and IT unit structure constructs, and providing prescriptive insight for managing IT-business strategic alignment.

Extent

175 p.

Comments

College of Business|Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2008.|College of Business

Identifier

FA00000617

Format

pdf

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