TY - JOUR
T1 - Aligning with New Digital Strategy
T2 - A Dynamic Capabilities Approach
AU - Yeow, Adrian
AU - Soh, Christina
AU - Hansen, Rina
PY - 2018/3
Y1 - 2018/3
N2 - Prior IS research has not fully addressed the aligning process in the highly dynamic context of digital strategy. To address this gap, we conduct a longitudinal analysis of a B2B company's journey to enact its B2C digital strategy, using the dynamic capabilities approach. We found that as an organization shifts towards a digital strategy, misalignments between the emergent strategy and resources give rise to tension. Our study resulted in the development of an aligning process model that is comprised of three phases (exploratory, building, and extending) and generalizable organizational aligning actions that form the organization's sensing, seizing, and transforming capacities. These aligning actions iteratively reconfigured organizational resources and refined strategy in order to respond to both changes in the environment and internal tensions. We also recognized that there are challenges to alignment, and conceptualized them as paradoxical tensions. This provided insights as to how such tensions are triggered and how they can be addressed. Finally, by applying the dynamic capabilities approach to aligning, we also show that alignment is not separate from such capabilities, but that aligning is enacted through the sensing, seizing and transforming capacities and their attendant aligning actions.
AB - Prior IS research has not fully addressed the aligning process in the highly dynamic context of digital strategy. To address this gap, we conduct a longitudinal analysis of a B2B company's journey to enact its B2C digital strategy, using the dynamic capabilities approach. We found that as an organization shifts towards a digital strategy, misalignments between the emergent strategy and resources give rise to tension. Our study resulted in the development of an aligning process model that is comprised of three phases (exploratory, building, and extending) and generalizable organizational aligning actions that form the organization's sensing, seizing, and transforming capacities. These aligning actions iteratively reconfigured organizational resources and refined strategy in order to respond to both changes in the environment and internal tensions. We also recognized that there are challenges to alignment, and conceptualized them as paradoxical tensions. This provided insights as to how such tensions are triggered and how they can be addressed. Finally, by applying the dynamic capabilities approach to aligning, we also show that alignment is not separate from such capabilities, but that aligning is enacted through the sensing, seizing and transforming capacities and their attendant aligning actions.
KW - Aligning
KW - Dynamic capabilities
KW - Digital strategy
KW - Tension
KW - B2C ecommerce
KW - IT alignment
KW - Aligning
KW - Dynamic capabilities
KW - Digital strategy
KW - Tension
KW - B2C ecommerce
KW - IT alignment
U2 - 10.1016/j.jsis.2017.09.001
DO - 10.1016/j.jsis.2017.09.001
M3 - Journal article
SN - 0963-8687
VL - 27
SP - 43
EP - 58
JO - Journal of Strategic Information Systems
JF - Journal of Strategic Information Systems
IS - 1
ER -