Introduction to Strategic Alignment

The concept of strategic alignment is more than two decades old (McLean and Soden, 1977; IBM, 1981; Earl, 1983; Mills, 1986; Brancheau and Wetherbe, 1987; Parker and Benson, 1988; Henderson and Venkatraman, 1990; Dixon and John, 1991; Niederman, et. al., 1991; Watson and Brancheau, 1991; Liebs, 1992; Luftman, Lewis and Oldach, 1993; Goff, 1993), however it has never been more timely than in today’s fast-paced, dynamic business environment (Papp, 1998; Rogers, 1997). The original alignment model was a largely theoretical construct that studied only a single industry (Henderson & Venkatraman, 1990; Henderson & Thomas, 1992) but has since been adapted for use by virtually any industry looking to integrate their business strategies with their information technology strategies (Papp, 1995; Luftman, Papp, & Brier, 1995).