The Board and CIO: The IT Alignment Challenge

As the dependence on information and its supporting IT infrastructure has grown in the modern-day organisation, so too has the need materialised for closer business and IT alignment. Hence, this remains one of the primary aims and challenges of IT governance. Unfortunately, although such alignment may be seemingly trivial, it has remained a troublesome prospect for organisations worldwide throughout the last decade. Whilst knowledge of this alignment challenge has emerged, less attention has been devoted to understanding the collective role of the board and the chief information officer (CIO). Furthermore, the nature of the interplay between these roles within an organisation in successfully contributing to the resolution of this alignment issue remains unclear. This paper contributes to the above-mentioned concern by arguing towards a conceptual IT alignment continuum that elucidates the role of the board and the CIO and their interplay in relation to the IT alignment challenge, as they represent the core of IT and the business.