An institutional theory account of how governance affects alignment and performance outcomes in a complex IS project

A long-standing challenge in the Information Systems discipline is the development of a theoretical account of how IT alignment is achieved, sustained, and generates positive effects. In this paper, we focus on a key piece of that problem: the role of governance. It is commonly agreed that governance – the leadership, structure, and decision-making processes instituted to ensure that IS projects generate value while minimising risk – plays an important role in achieving and sustaining IT alignment, but there has been little theoretical work on how it may do so. Without such theoretical development, it is difficult to justify the linkages between IT governance, alignment, and performance, and explain how these links play out in practice. We seek to contribute to the IT alignment and IT governance literatures by providing an institutional theory account of how governance – and changes in governance over time – affect the achievement and sustainment of alignment in a complex IS project, and thereby affect the project’s performance outcomes.