Abstract

Strategic IT management (SITM) has evolved from the often reactive management of a company’s technology provider to steering a service-oriented partner of the business. Consequently, IT executives need to adapt their management methods. Our research suggests a strategic positioning method for IT management as the first - and often missing - phase of a related SITM cycle. We followed design science research principles to examine the relevant literature and conduct a set of case studies to investigate the constituents that contribute to strategic positioning. We used this empirical work to capture the complex social dynamics of SITM in the field. The theoretical foundations of our research are strategic IT management and organizational method engineering. The Information Strategy Assessment (ISA) method, introduced in this paper, builds on our finding that social dynamics are the most important constituent of a successful strategic positioning project. We use this insight to design our method’s principal processes as well as to describe certain social dynamics in the group of actors involved in SITM. The ISA method also shows the outputs that are generated from the related group processes. This research-in-progress paper provides IT executives with a method that supports their efforts for an emancipated, yet aligned, SITM in a corporate context. The ISA method not only acknowledges IT organizations’ contemporary role, but also provides researchers with insights into SITM’s social dynamics as a basis to improve explanations and recommendations regarding of this domain’s complex technical, decisional, and social processes.

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