MEASURING THE LINKAGE BETWEEN BUSINESS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY OBJECTIVES

The establishment of linkage between business and information technolo gy objectives has consistently been reported as one of the key concern s of information systems (IS) managers. The two objectives of this pap er are: (1) to clarify the nature of the linkage construct, and (2) to report on a project that developed and tested measures of the social dimension of linkage. According to our research, the linkage construct has two dimensions: 1. Intellectual: the content of information techn ology and business plans are internally consistent and externally vali d. 2. Social: the IS and business executives understand each others' o bjectives and plans. We conducted a study of measurement issues associ ated with the social dimension of linkage. The following candidate mea sures of linkage were examined: 1. Cross references between written bu siness and information technology plans;2. IS and business executives' mutual understanding of each other's current objectives; 3. Congruenc e between IS and business executives' long-term visions for informatio n technology deployment; 4. Executives' self-reported rating of linkag e. Data were collected from 10 business units in three large Canadian life insurance companies. In addition to examining written documents s uch as strategic plans and minutes of steering committee meetings, ext ensive interviews were conducted with information systems and business unit executives. Based on this data, understanding of current objecti ves and shared vision for the utilization of information technology ar e proposed as the most promising potential measures for short- and lon g-term aspects of the social dimension of linkage, respectively. With some precautions, self-reports may also be used as a surrogate measure for short-term linkage.