An evaluation framework for comparing business-IT alignment models: A tool for supporting collaborative learning in organizations

Researchers and practitioners have argued on the importance of business-IT alignment (BITA) for organizations to maximize the business value of IT. As a result, a vast number of BITA models have been designed to support organizations in achieving, assessing and maintaining BITA. These models focus on different components (i.e. concepts/aspects of alignment) and emphasize different perspectives of the alignment (i.e. how alignment is perceived by practitioners). This makes it difficult for practitioners to choose an appropriate BITA model for a specific organization. In this paper, an evaluation framework to support practitioners in choosing appropriate BITA models is proposed. The framework was constructed following design science as a research approach. The design science activities were carried out in an iterative manner until reaching a final artefact. The process started with an extensive literature survey that led to designing a tentative model. Following that, different empirical iterations contributed to the framework development. The final framework consists of 25 criteria categorized into four groups. It was tested on six major BITA models, demonstrating its feasibility. Finally, the framework was evaluated by interviewing five business consultants and seven IT managers from large Swedish organizations. The evaluation shows that the framework has a complete set of criteria with a sufficient level of coherence, but its usability and efficiency is argued differently. The framework, additionally, is argued to potentially be used as a collaborative learning tool on requirement of BITA between practitioners from both business and IT domain or serve in the academic world.