Toward CNO Characteristics to Support Business/IT-Alignment

Abstract

Increasing market dynamics rapidly change the business landscape. Collaboration amongst organizations is a common way to cope with these dynamics. Achieving a state of Business/IT-alignment (BITA) within Collaborative Networked Organizations (CNOs) appears to be a valuable endeavor. Therefore, this paper investigates CNO characteristics, as a basis, to incrementally design BITA artifacts that facilitate CNO-dynamism. Via a structured literature review and an expert session, we synthesized a list of 6 main and 22 sub-characteristics for CNOs. This list provides more detailed characteristics than we found in the literature. We also discuss the importance of the characteristic "Dynamic and self-regulating network" and the need for new BITA models that can cope with the dynamics.

Identification of IT-Needs to Cope with Dynamism in Collaborative Networked Organizations—A Case Study

“…The extant literature shows that a higher degree of alignment within an organization provides benefits to the firm [4]. Current models for BITA do not address the 'networked lens' that we see within a collaborative environment [8].…”

“…RQ: What IT-needs do CNOs have to cope with CNO-dynamism? To answer this research question, we use the "Dynamic and self-regulating networks" characteristic presented by Van den Heuvel, Trienekens, Van de Wetering, and Bos [8] and focus, as part of this characteristic, on the interrelations and interactions between participants within the CNO. We focus on two operational (system/process) characteristics: "many-to-many relations" and "interaction patterns."…”