Abstract

Strategy has been always a key concern to top management. Recent developments in information technology have highlighted the capabilities and the strategic functionalities that IT could add to companies strategies. More and more attention has been granted to exploit IT capabilities in supporting and introducing new business strategies. The aim of this study is to examine the strategic alignment and evaluate the recent research introduced by various scholars, in order to introduce a framework which refines the major factors which influence the strategic alignment. A study on Strategic Alignment between Information Technology and Business Strategy regarding the case study Aramex Company Profile provided which have different level of IT exploitation. Data was collected through questionnaire distributed to business and IT managers, as well as companies press releases and  disclosures. The findings support the previous research that the shared domain knowledge, trust and understanding, participation and involvement, and communication have an impact on the strategic alignment. However, through the analysis of the results, it has been found that the level of the industrial IT dependency plays a direct role in determine the level of strategic alignment in firms. To sum up, it can say that adopted strategy, level of communication, trust and understanding, participation and involvement, shared domain knowledge and the level of industrial IT dependency have a direct impact on the strategic alignment between IT and business strategy.

Keywords: Strategic Alignment; Information technology; Business Strategy; IT dependency.

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