It'S not Fair! A Multilevel Conceptualization of Strategic IT Benchmarking Success: the Role of Procedural Justice

Strategic IT benchmarking (SITBM) is used to improve business-IT alignment, generate input for the IT strategy process, or to show IT’s value contribution and performance. Yet, as many SITBM initiatives do not result in the desired improvements, many IT executives are fairly critical about this form of benchmarking. However, now more than ever, many contemporary IT executives are expected to make transparent their IT organization’s performance and value contribution. SITBM’s relevance as a technique to create this transparency has therefore increased. Based on an exhaustive literature analysis, including the fields of benchmarking, strategic IT management, and strategic decisionmaking, I suggest a model for explaining SITBM’s success and develop a respective survey instrument. I argue that explaining SITBM success requires two levels of analysis: only when the stakeholders perceive the benchmarking process as fair and are convinced of the SITBM’s methodological quality, will they commit to implementing the derived measures. I argue that this commitment, together with strategic integration of the SITBM, are the key determinants of successful SITBM.