A Systematic Review of Business and Information Technology Alignment

Conceptual data systems architecture principles for information systems

Information systems alignment with enterprise evolution affects the performance of enterprises. The systems conceptual and data quality, development time and sustainable life cycle management, are issues for enterprise competitiveness. The ability to directly generate enterprise information systems from models has been thought of as a solution to improve on these issues. Model-driven systems have been a research topic for decades. Fundamental principles for a proven model-driven information systems architecture are outlined in this article. Architectural foundation is a separation of user communities conceptual domain from the information technical domain. The users domain is modeled as an information system model in three layers, conceptual data logic model, interface model and user community model. The technical domain is a platform, allowing the modeling and execution of such a model. These principles have been applied in practice and proven viable. Two platforms and applications, which adhere to these principles, are briefly described.

How Managers Use Information Systems for Strategy Implementation in Agritourism SMEs

Agritourism is long established and the interest in diversification of agricultural enterprises into tourism has increased. However, many challenges have emerged regarding the lack of appropriate skills, strategic planning, Information Systems (IS), as well as increased costs in production processes. In Greece, the contribution of agritourism to economic growth has increased in the last decade, but the relationship between the agricultural sector and agritourism is a reason for certain people having largely taken advantage from the development of tourism in a specific area. Greek businesses operating in the agritourism sector are seeking long-term sustainability. However, they lack strategic planning and effective use of IS. As the strategic implementation of Information Technology (IT) in Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the agritourism sector is under-researched, this paper aims to investigate how the process of Strategic Information Systems Planning (SISP) affects the success of Greek SMEs in the agritourism industry. IS executives completed the survey and ANOVA analysis was used for data analysis. The findings of the paper indicate that IS executives do not focus on the analysis of the external environment and the evaluation of opportunities for IS development. In addition, the lack of formulation of the IT strategy creates inefficient and unsuccessful IT projects.

Barriers to Information Technology Adoption Within Small and Medium Enterprises: A Systematic Literature Review

While information technology (IT) has grown rapidly in enterprises, scholars have emphasized the importance of IT factors and aspects, while limited attention has been paid to the barriers and challenges facing the adoption of IT. In light of this, we stress the importance of barriers inhibiting IT adoption within Small and Medium Enterprises (SME). For this purpose, this paper aims to create a systematic literature review in order to provide a better understanding of barriers to IT adoption within SME. On the basis of 132 selected studies, we identify 18 barriers categorized according to internal and external parameters. Finally, we underline a synthesis and avenues for future research, and provide scientific and managerial implications and guidance for the adoption of IT in SME.

Connecting Enterprise Architecture and Project Portfolio Management

Enterprise architecture (EA) and project portfolio management (PPM) are key areas when it comes to connecting enterprise strategy and information technology (IT) projects. Both management disciplines enhance business capabilities, integrate skilled resources, and govern affiliated processes and functions. A skillful comprehension of the links between these managerial areas is essential for effective IT planning. This article elaborates on the common grounds and structural attachment of EA and PPM, showing the substantiated relations between them and demonstrating their cohesiveness. From strategic planning to solution delivery, a conceptual model for IT project alignment integrates these IT management disciplines over two levels. EA ascertains the technical goals and constraints, whereas PPM determines the organizational goals and constraints. The results from both sides are combined to jointly propose, select, prioritize, and schedule IT projects. Roadmapping is a suitable approach to bring EA and PPM together.

The Critical Role of Information System Integration in a Horizontal Merger

This article reports on a horizontal merger of two insurance companies and their failure to properly integrate their information systems. The task that was supported by both well-founded market research and external consultants proved more challenging than thought due to the complexity and interconnectedness of related business processes. The main difficulties arose in the area of skill development, skill retention, and management buy-in. Thereby, this article adds valuable insights to the stream of case studies of merger and acquisition activities through providing deeper insights into IS integration, which is by most contributions treated as a black box.

Strategizing Information Systems: An Empirical Analysis of IT Alignment and Success in SMEs

IT investment is a crucial issue as it does not only influence the performance in Small-Medium Enterprises (SMEs) but it also helps executives to align business strategy with organizational performance. Admittedly, though, there is ineffective use of Information Systems (IS) due to a lack of strategic planning and of formal processes resulting in executives’ failure to develop IS plans and achieve long-term sustainability. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to examine the phases of Strategic Information Systems Planning (SISP) process that contribute to a greater extent of success so that guidelines regarding the implementation of the process in SMEs can be provided. Data was collected by 160 IS executives in Greek SMEs during February and May 2017. Multivariate Regression Analysis was applied on the detailed items of the SISP process and success constructs. The results of this survey present that managers should be aware of the strategic use of IS planning so as to increase competitive advantage. Senior executives should choose the appropriate IT infrastructure (related to their business strategy and organizational structure), so as to align business strategy with organizational structure. The findings of this paper could help IS executives concentrate their efforts on business objectives and recognize the great value of the planning process on their business.

Business-IT Alignment Literature Review

The purpose of this article is to portray the knowledge evolution paths of business-IT alignment (BITA) research and identify a set of important papers in the development of BITA, and elucidate the intellectual structure of this field. This study collected 309 papers published during the period 1983-2015 from the Web of Science (WOS) database. Using a variety of bibliometric and visualization analytic techniques such as citation analysis, co-citation analysis and main path analysis, this article (1) delineates the significant knowledge flows of BITA research and identifies 15 important papers in this field; (2) graphically maps the influential countries, institutions, and journals of BITA research; (3) identifies four major research themes: BITA model, measurement, antecedents, and dynamics, and visualizing the relationships among them. Based on these findings, recommendations for the future research directions have suggested. This article provides IT practitioners, executives, and scholars with a new perspective to get a better understanding of BITA.

Role-Based Process View Derivation and Composition

The process view concept deploys a partial and temporal representation to adjust the visible view of a business process according to various perception constraints of users. Process view technology is of practical use for privacy protection and authorization control in process-oriented business management. Owing to complex organizational structure, it is challenging for large companies to accurately specify the diverse perception of different users over business processes. Aiming to tackle this issue, this article presents a role-based process view model to incorporate role dependencies into process view derivation. Compared to existing process view approaches, ours particularly supports runtime updates to the process view perceivable to a user with specific view merging operations, thereby enabling the dynamic tracing of process perception. A series of rules and theorems are established to guarantee the structural consistency and validity of process view transformation. A hypothetical case is conducted to illustrate the feasibility of our approach, and a prototype is developed for the proof-of-concept purpose.

Complications with Complexity in Requirements

Requirements engineering must recognize the difference between complicated and complex problems. The former can lead to successful solutions. The latter should be avoided because they often lead to failure. As a starting point for distinguishing between complicated and complex, this article offers six characteristics of complex problems, with examples from economics, logistics, forecasting, among others. These characteristics make it easier and more systematic to recognize complexity during requirements elicitation and formulation.