The Influence of Top Management's Absorptive Capacity of IT Governance Knowledge on Business-IT Alignment: an Empirical Analysis

摘要

Business-IT alignment has been the focus of both information technology (IT) practice and the academic world. Prior studies acknowledge that top management plays a critical role in ensuring IT aligns with business goals. This study offers a deeper understanding of factors which may positively influence the level of business-IT alignment. Using absorptive capacity theory as the theoretical basis, this study shows that top managements' absorptive capacity of IT governance knowledge positively and significantly contributes to higher levels of business-IT alignment. This study involves 231 top-management respondents from Australian for-profit organisations. The study's empirical finding suggests that organisations that want to have higher levels of business-IT alignment need to pay attention to their top management's absorptive capacity of IT governance knowledge by concentrating on four factors: prior relevant knowledge, communication network, communication climate, and knowledge scanning.