ABSTRACT
Strategic alignment or the fit between information technology (IT) and business strategy remains a primary topic of concern among executives worldwide. Over time, the pursuit of alignment has grown more complicated as firms struggle to adapt their business strategy to an increasingly volatile world. Planning for alignment in such situations is fraught with risk as firms seek to understand how much flexibility to add to their IT infrastructure so as to maintain consistently high levels of alignment. In this chapter, we explore six case studies in aerospace, banking, career services, health insurance, printing, and software firms that confirm the complex nature of such decisions. Using data from surveys and detailed interviews of IT and business executives in these six firms, we identify a positive relationship between IT infrastructure flexibility and strategic alignment with strategic information systems planning (SISP) serving as a moderator of this relationship. For example, we reveal that firms with inflexible IT infrastructure exhibit chaotic SISP while those with flexible IT infrastructure have more structured information systems (IS) planning. This result highlights the need for firms to use IS planning processes to consistently monitor the relationship between IT infrastructure flexibility and alignment. Doing so during periods of increased change and uncertainty reduces the risk of being ensnared by rigidity traps that could transform IT into an inhibitor rather than an enabler of change
