A dissertationsubmitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophyin Managementof Technology, School of Management

Thesis (Ph.D.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2014

This study focuses on the Business-Information Technology Alignment(BIA), its causes, and its impact on organizations. BIA is designed to help an organization realize the value of Information Technology (IT) by bringing IT and business people together so they can work effectively to meet the ultimate goals of a business.This study emphasizes how important it is for organizations to consider the BIA at both the strategic and the operational levels so that they are able to bring an alignment into real practice. We also identified the antecedents or drivers of BIA and analyze the impact of BIA on organizational performance from both a macro, or big picture perspective, to a detailed micro perspective at the strategic and operational levels. The empirical study was conducted among 3 {u2013}5 star hotels in Thailand. Structural equation modeling was used for our analysis. The final model provides insight into BIA, its antecedents, and its impact on performance. The analysis results confirmed that a high degree of alignment between business and IT positively increased organizational performance. The Business-IT Alignment at the strategic level influences the overall alignment in the organization which implies that the Business-IT Alignment should be initiated at the strategic level, and then, to operations. Results also identified that the most influential BIA antecedent was the shared domain knowledge between the business and IT units. The remaining four antecedents were: communication; IT management sophistication; planning sophistication; and the success of IT implementation and operations. Althoughboth Strategic BIA and Operational BIA shared common antecedents, the priorities were different. Shared domain knowledge was the most critical for Strategic BIA while IT success was the most important to Operational BIA. IT management sophistication had a negative relationship with BIA at both levels which suggested that key business leadership is required to ensure IT management does not overpower business management.