Aligning in Practice: From Current Cases to a New Agenda

Karpovsky, Anna; Galliers, Robert D.

doi:10.1057/jit.2014.34

Cited by 92 publications

(65 citation statements)

References 113 publications

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“…In comparison, emerging strategies focus on the protagonists of strategizing – the practitioners (Whittington, ). Here, the focus is on how strategy is enacted in practice (Hackney & Little, ; Johnson et al , ; Nolan, ), making it relevant to reflect on the concept of alignment (in a dynamic and on‐going sense) between IT and business, as a key aspect of strategizing (Chan et al , ; Chan & Reich, ; Hirschheim & Sabherwal, ; Karpovsky & Galliers, ). Moreover, planned and emerging strategy, as with exploitation and exploration, are not viewed as sequential but overlapping (Henfridsson & Bygstad, ; Merali et al , ).…”

Section: Is Strategy and Strategizing: An Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A reflection on information systems strategizing: the role of power and everyday practices

Marabelli

Galliers

2016

Information Systems Journal

112

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We review the IS strategizing literature and highlight its main strengths and weaknesses. Strengths include an account given to the relevance of tensions between planned and executed strategy, and associated tradeoffs such as rigidity and flexibility, formal and informal strategizing and the exploitation of static resources vis à vis the exploration of novel capabilities. Weaknesses relate to a predominant focus on an organizational level of analysis and a lack of power considerations. In this paper we aim to build on these strengths and to ameliorate these weaknesses by proposing a comprehensive IS strategizing framework that uses extant IS strategizing research as a foundation, rejuvenated by insights from the emerging strategy‐as‐practice literature. The paper extends our understanding of IS strategizing in light of the practice perspective by providing a multilevel account and incorporating power considerations.

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Section: Is Strategy and Strategizing: An Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Newell et al , ). In addition, IS strategizing highlights dynamic processes that are conducted jointly by IT and business personnel (Ciborra, ; Hanseth, ; Mumford, ), thereby strengthening ongoing alignment, or better aligning (Karpovsky & Galliers, ; Wilson et al , ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A reflection on information systems strategizing: the role of power and everyday practices

Marabelli

Galliers

2016

Information Systems Journal

112

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“…Instead, it refers to shorter realization cycles (Györy et al, 2012) and faster decision making in IT boards (Weill & Ross, 2004). We can also speculate about the importance of enhanced communication between business units and IT as a means to improve alignment (Karpovsky & Galliers, 2015). By doing so, the company may have dampened the reinforcing cycle that increased the number of non-official systems and could have corrected it in a way so that the "decommissioning" cycle showed greater effects.…”

Section: Case Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Shadow Systems, Risk, and Shifting Power Relations in Organizations

Fürstenau¹,

Rothe²,

Sandner³

2017

CAIS

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Abstract:Drawing on notions of power and the social construction of risk, we build new theory to understand the persistence of shadow systems in organizations. From a single case study in a mid-sized savings bank, we derive two feedback cycles that concern shifting power relations between business units and central IT associated with shadow systems. A distant business-IT relationship and changing business needs can create repeated cost and time pressures that make business units draw on shadow systems. The perception of risk can trigger an opposing power shift back through the decommissioning and recentralization of shadow systems. However, empirical findings suggest that the weakening tendency of formal risk-management programs may not be sufficient to stop the shadow systems cycle spinning if they fail to address the underlying causes for the emergence of shadow systems. These findings highlight long-term dynamics associated with shadow systems and pose "risk" as a power-shifting construct.

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“…This research has been conducted using an interpretivist lens; we view reality as socially constructed and we endeavoured to capture meaningful understanding of respondents' lived experience of the project (Heracleous, 2004). Longitudinal, process-oriented studies using an interpretive lens have a long tradition in studying IT projects (Walsham 1995) and continue to be called for in current research (Karpovski andGalliers 2015, Bakker et al 2016).…”

Section: Research Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

The process of social alignment and misalignment within a complex IT project

Gilchrist

Burton‐Jones

Green

2018

International Journal of Project Management

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Project management is more efficient and effective when project stakeholders are socially aligned on what the project objectives are and how they should be achieved. This outcome occurs because social alignment reduces the friction among stakeholders each time a project management decision is made. Yet, how social alignment develops or dissolves over time in a complex project is unknown.This research develops a dynamic model of social alignment and misalignment, and it identifies some of the project controls that appear to affect their development. Drawing on interview and observational data from 17 respondents involved in a complex health-IT project over a two-year period, we show that social alignment and misalignment involve eight stages -separation, disrespect, lack of cross-discipline participation and social misalignment through to learning, respect, crossdiscipline participation and ultimately, social alignment. The research has implications for how researchers theorize social alignment in complex projects and how practitioners can facilitate its development. This is the last version of the paper submitted prior to its acceptance and publication. It is provided in open access in accordance with Australian Research Council policy. for reviewing our research and providing developmental comments: the ICIS 2017 track chairs, CecilChua, Julia Kotlarsky, and Gwanhoo Lee; the journal editor and reviewers; and Neal Ashkanasy. We would also like to thank Michelle Smidt for her assistance collecting the research data, and the participants at the case sites for their time, insights, and support. The Processes of Social Alignment and Misalignment within a Complex IT Projectproviding researchers and practitioners with a finer-grained and more complete perspective on social alignment, social misalignment, and how they evolve, than available in the literature to date.The remainder of the paper is structured as follows. The next section discusses the literature that we drew upon to examine social alignment and project controls. We then detail our research methods.Next, we present our findings along with a model of social alignment and misalignment, which we derived from our findings. Finally, we close the paper with a discussion of our research findings, implications of our findings for theory and practice, and a conclusion.

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Aligning in Practice: From Current Cases to a New Agenda

Cited by 92 publications

References 113 publications

A reflection on information systems strategizing: the role of power and everyday practices

A reflection on information systems strategizing: the role of power and everyday practices

Shadow Systems, Risk, and Shifting Power Relations in Organizations

The process of social alignment and misalignment within a complex IT project

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