Subservient to the upper echelon: how information systems managers practice strategic alignment in the public higher education sector

This article presents a taxonomy that is grounded in the findings of a Strategy-as-Practice (SaP) study undertaken within the public higher education sector. Two cases, operating under the auspices of Ireland’s Institutes of Technology (IIT), were chosen to explore how the alignment of business and information systems (IS) strategies is practiced by IS managers in the public higher education sector. We applied a methodology within the interpretive paradigm that integrates three research pillars comprising integrative framework for SaP, constructivist grounded theory coding and case research methodology. The taxonomy we develop reveals that the IS manager is a functional manager tasked with reducing costs and gaining efficiencies, while being excluded from direct involvement in the development of IS strategy and prevented from liaising directly with the organization’s principal IS services provider. The IS manager depends largely on being able to successfully lay down some mechanisms and practices in his/her efforts to align business and IS strategies. Our study makes a theoretical, practical and methodological contribution to the strategic alignment body of knowledge.