Business and IT Strategic Alignment: An Assessment of A Commercial Approach

Tools

Jaworski, Paul (2007) Business and IT Strategic Alignment: An Assessment of A Commercial Approach. [Dissertation (University of Nottingham only)] (Unpublished)

[thumbnail of 07MBAlixpjj.pdf] PDF - Registered users only - Requires a PDF viewer such as GSview, Xpdf or Adobe Acrobat Reader
Download (445kB)

Abstract

The principal aim of this management project was to provide answers to the question to what extent does academic theory influence / support the corporate approach to strategic alignment, as expressed in published strategy documents?

In order to do this a literature review was undertaken to gather and understand the relevant and current academic principles. The literature review covers the following major areas of academic thinking: business strategy, IT strategy and strategic

alignment. The literature for strategic alignment is broken down into two natural categories; the intellectual and the social perspectives.

The research had to be conducted on a commercial organisation that had the resources and commercial scope to support an analysis of a pragmatic approach to strategic alignment, IBM was selected for the analysis. Published strategic alignment material from IBM was used

for the basis of this research.

The research results proved very interesting. The strategic alignment material from IBM unexpectedly supported a chronological analysis of their approach. The material covers the period from 2002 to 2006 and indicates over that time IBM changed their strategic alignment message on almost a yearly basis.

The project concludes with a discussion of what the possible influences on IBM approach are. The supposition is that the two possible causes for the change are marketing demand and environmental

demand. The discussion finishes up with what the implications are if the environmental supposition is correct.

Item Type: Dissertation (University of Nottingham only)
Depositing User: EP, Services
Date Deposited: 04 Jul 2007
Last Modified: 17 Feb 2018 07:43
URI: https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/id/eprint/20871

Actions (Archive Staff Only)

Edit View Edit View