THE ALIGNMENT BETWEEN ORGANIZATIONAL CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY CAPABILITY IN ACADEMIC-INSTITUTIONS

Alignment between organizational critical success factors (CSFs) and c ompetencies is widely believed to improve performance. This study exam ines the performance implications of alignment between CSFs and one so urce of competence, the organization's information technology (IT) cap ability. The effects of three antecedent factors-environmental uncerta inty, integration, and IT management sophistication-are also examined. This paper uses survey data from 244 large academic institutions, alo ng with some secondary data. Following the profile deviation approach to measure alignment, the academic institutions are divided into three clusters based on their CSFs: the academic comprehensives, the repute d giants, and the small educators. The ideal profile of IT capability is next developed for each cluster in terms of four dimensions: inform ation retrieval, electronic communication, computing facilities for st udents, and computer-aided education. Alignment is then computed for e ach institution as the proximity of its IT capability profile from the ideal IT capability profile for the cluster to which it belongs. The results suggest that alignment facilitates both perceived IT success a nd organizational performance. Moreover, sophisticated IT management f acilitates both alignment and perceived IT success, environmental unce rtainty facilitates perceived IT success but not alignment, and integr ation facilitates neither alignment not perceived IT success.