A lignment between business strategy and IS strategy is widely believed to improve business performance. This paper examines the impact of alignment on perceived business performance using Miles and Snow's popular classification of Defender, Analyzer, and Prospector business strategies. A priori theoretical profiles for these business strategies are developed using Venkatraman's (1989a) measure of business strategy. Theoretical profiles for IS strategies are developed in terms of four types of systems-operational support systems, market information systems, strategic decision-support systems, and interorganizational systems. Empirical data from two multirespondent surveys of 164 and 62 companies, respectively, are analyzed. Results indicate that alignment affects perceived business performance but only in some organizations. Alignment seems to influence overall business success in Prospectors and Analyzers but not in Defenders. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.

T his paper examines the evolution of portfolio of controls over the duration of outsourced information systems development (ISD) projects. Drawing on five cases, it concludes that many findings from research on control of internal ISD projects apply to the outsourced context as well, but with some interesting differences. The portfolios of control in outsourced projects are dominated by outcome controls, especially at the start of the project; although the precision and frequency of these controls varies across projects. Behavior controls are often added later in the project, as are controls aimed to encourage and enable vendor selfcontrol. Clan controls were used in only two of the cases-when the client and vendor had shared goals, and when frequent interactions led to shared values. In general, the outsourced projects we studied began with relatively simple controls but often required significant additional controls after experiencing performance problems. Factors influencing the choice and evolution of controls are also examined.

Abstract-Prior research argues that alignment between business and information systems (IS) strategies enhances organizational performance. However, factors affecting alignment have received relatively little empirical attention. Moreover, IS strategic alignment is assumed to facilitate the performance of all organizations, regardless of type or business strategy. By using two studies of business firms and academic institutions, this paper: 1) develops and tests a model relating alignment, its antecedents, and its consequences and 2) examines differences in these relationships across organizational types and strategies. Findings indicate that alignment depends on shared domain knowledge and prior IS success, and also support the expected positive impact of alignment on organizational performance. Differences across Prospector, Analyzer, and Defender business strategies are examined. A key research contribution is the empirical demonstration that the importance of alignment, as well as the mechanisms used to attain alignment, vary by business strategy and industry. In past alignment studies, controlling for industry has not been uncommon. The findings suggest that future research studies should also control for business strategy. The article also empirically demonstrates that past implementation success influences alignment. In addition, it highlights the influence of a process variable, strategic planning, on the development of shared knowledge and, consequently, on alignment. This paper examines strategic issues related to the management of technology. Data from multiple surveys are used to test the extent to which strategic planning, shared business-IS knowledge, prior IS success, and other variables consistently enhance IS alignment. The study also provides empirical support for the popular argument that IS alignment improves organizational performance. It extends the current literature by examining the extent to which these findings hold across firm strategies and industries. The authors argue that not all firms are equally well served by allocating scarce resources to improve IS alignment. Index Terms-Academic institutions, antecedents of alignment, business strategy, information systems strategy, organizational characteristics, organizational performance, strategic alignment.

Despite considerable empirical research, results on the relationships among constructs related to information system (IS) success, as well as the determinants of IS success, are often inconsistent. A comprehensive understanding of IS success thus remains elusive. In an attempt to address this situation, which may partly be due to the exclusion of potentially important constructs from prior parsimonious models of IS success, we present and test a comprehensive theoretical model. This model explains interrelationships among four constructs representing the success of a specific IS (user satisfaction, system use, perceived usefulness, and system quality), and the relationships of these IS success constructs with four user-related constructs (user experience with ISs, user training in ISs, user attitude toward ISs, and user participation in the development of the specific IS) and two constructs representing the context (top-management support for ISs and facilitating conditions for ISs). To test the model, we first used meta-analysis to compute a correlation matrix for the constructs in the model based on 612 findings from 121 studies published between 1980 and 2004, and then used this correlation matrix as input for a LISREL analysis of the model. Overall, we found excellent support for the theoretical model. The results underline the importance of user-related and contextual attributes in IS success and raise questions about some commonly believed relationships.information technology, information systems, information systems success, structural equation modeling, meta-analysis

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