Detours in the Path toward Strategic Information Systems Alignment
研究组织在长期中如何通过一系列相互依赖的业务与信息系统战略调整来实现对齐，发现该过程常出现过度转型、矛盾决策和不确定转向三种问题路径，并分析其原因与规避建议。
In studying strategic information systems (IS) alignment, it is important to examine the associated processes over time rather than viewing alignment as an isolated event. This article focuses on how organizations undergo a series of interdependent changes in business strategy and IS strategy in order to increase the alignment between them. Based primarily on detailed case studies of changes over long time-periods in three organizations, the research suggests that this process of adaptation and change, which allows alignment to occur, is more complex than previously believed. While efforts to achieve alignment between IS and the business do sometimes produce alignment, they often go astray. There are three such potentially problematic trajectories—excessive transformation, paradoxical decisions, and uncertain turnarounds. This article identifies some factors explaining why organizations might pursue these problematic trajectories and offers some suggestions for avoiding them.