Post-merger IT integration strategies: An IT alignment perspective

Fons Wijnhoven*, Ton Spil, Robert Stegwee, Rachel Tjang A Fa

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

138 Citations (Scopus)
125 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

When a company decides to merge with or to acquire another company, a major question is to what extent to integrate the information technologies and the organization. Interpreting merger objectives to proper IT integration strategies is a complex and time-consuming process, due to a lack of explicit understanding of the problems involved. The current literature in this field is meager and has not yet resulted in a theory. For this purpose, we developed a variant of the IT alignment model. In this model, we identify three ambition levels of mergers and IT integration from the literature. Additionally, we describe four integration methods that fit with these ambitions. The relations between these objectives and methods are moderated by contextual factors. Three hospital cases, with different merger and IT integration ambitions, describe the practice of this model. The case studies also add several new variables and relations to it. This result facilitates further research in post-merger IT integration by delivering an empirical research model.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)5-28
Number of pages24
JournalThe Journal of strategic information systems
Volume15
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2006

Keywords

  • IT integration strategies
  • Information management
  • Mergers
  • IT alignment

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