A Critical Review of Luftman´s Instrument for Business-IT Alignment
Fernando Paulo Belfo
Rui Dinis Sousa
Conference Paper in the 7th Mediterranean Conference on Information Systems, MCIS 2012, Guimarães, 8-10 September, 2012
Abstract:
Business and Information Technology alignment (BIA) remains one of the most important issues among IT managers. The assessment of Business and Information Technology Alignment (BIA) has been viewed by different rationales in the literature. This paper reviews the most important literature about BIA, identifying the alignment assessment approaches under the lenses provided by Luftman alignment measurement instrument. Several significant alignment studies are analyzed, presenting their research approach, the dimensions of the alignment and the unit of analysis employed at each study. Then, an assessment how well these various works on Business/IT-alignment cover individual dimensions of the Luftman framework is made. One of the main finding was that most of the approaches focus were on the strategic level. Also, from these studies, the alignment between business and IT may vary from a simpler view, with a single and indirect computation way, to a more complex approach sustained by Luftman, with quite a few dimensions, identified as communication, competency/value measurements, governance, partnership, technology scope and skills. This work contributes for a better understanding of the findings regarding Luftman’s instrument validation. Implications for future research are discussed.
Keywords: business and IT alignment, alignment approaches, alignment dimensions, instrument validity.