Strategic and tactical antecedents in IT alignment: Evidence on catalan SME

Abstract

IT alignment is one of the hot topics in the IT executives’ agenda. Scholars in this research strand claim for a deeper understanding of the relationship between IT alignment and business performance. Recent research focuses on IT alignment antecedents. This research in progress work aims to participate in this goal. The authors have designed a research work for SME in Catalonia. Their main goal is to increase knowledge in this field by providing scientific evidence in a specific cultural and geographical environment. This paper relates the preliminary results of the first phase of the research. A qualitative approach has been used to validate the initial model. Thirteen semi-structured interviews have been issued to Catalan SME firms. Most of them consider their firms have an IT alignment at the operational level but they lack strategic and tactical elements in their firms’ alignment. Based on these results this paper proposes a new theoretical model that hypothesizes a specific and delimitated role for strategic and tactical antecedents for IT alignment. Further steps will provide a quantitative analysis of this model.