Alignment's nomological network: Theory and evaluation

•Intellectual and operational alignment are unique, but the former influences the latter.•The alignment–financial performance relationship is mediated by customer benefit and the operational alignment–customer benefit relationship is mediated by productivity.•Social alignment influences intellectual alignment but may not influence operational alignment.

While the importance of IT-business alignment is rarely questioned, a strong theoretical foundation of alignment's nomological network has not been developed or tested. This has generated a debate on why tighter alignment may or may not lead to higher levels of firm performance. To further understand the alignment-performance relationship, we used meta-analytic structural equation modeling techniques to probe the inter-relationships found in 78 independent data sets drawn from the literature. We find intellectual alignment influences operational alignment, identify a more nuanced understanding of the performance constructs, and offer insight into how governance structure and social alignment influence intellectual and operational alignment.