Effects of Business Managers’ Skills on Enterprise Resources Planning Strategic Alignment

Abstract

The subject of the antecedents of strategic IT/IS alignment continues to generate interest. Most researches focus on the role of IT/IS managers in the alignment process and less attention is paid to the role of business managers in such projects. Indeed, although these managers are deemed to have contributions to the success of IT/IS projects, few researches have examined their contributions in the alignment process. In this context, this research attempts to identify the contributions of business managers’ skills in achieving alignment between business strategy and ERP (Enterprise Resources Planning) implementation. To achieve this objective, a model is developed based on the literature review. According to this model, three types of skills are necessary for business managers to contribute to alignment: IT/IS skills, interpersonal skills and conceptual skills. These skills influence the state of alignment directly and indirectly by promoting interactions between managers. A survey research provided support, mainly, to the assumptions of indirect dependency between skills and the state of alignment. The results of statistical tests demonstrate also that it is mainly interpersonal skills which most influence alignment. These results are in contradiction with several previous studies that emphasize the importance of the "technical" skills of business managers (IT/IS skills) to contribute to alignment. Thus, this research supports the idea that the "social" (human) aspect is more crucial than the "technical" one in ERP projects.