The Role of IT/Business Alignment for Achieving SOA Business Value - Proposing a Research Model

What is the interplay between IT/Business alignment and Service-oriented Architecture (SOA) regarding the achievement of business value in terms of business flexibility? This paper introduces a conceptual model that derives propositions about how IT/Business alignment, IT flexibility, and business flexibility are interrelated and how SOA and alignment interact in order to increase business flexibility. We apply and integrate well-known multi-dimensional concepts of both IT/Business alignment (in terms of strategic alignment, structural alignment, and social alignment) and IT flexibility (technical and non-technical IT flexibility) and map the conceptual components of SOA (architectural and the governance dimension) to this resulting model. This conceptualization will allow for more profoundly structured research on how SOA contributes to business value.