ANTECEDENTS AND OUTCOMES OF BUSINESS INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ALIGNMENT: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY ON JORDANIAN HOTELS

The current research paper aims to examine the role of antecedents of Business Information Technology (BIT) alignment encompassing the topics of shared domain knowledge, Information Technology (IT) success, organization size, IT management sophistication, employee satisfaction, and customer loyalty) in enhancing BIT alignment, and in turn, financial performance at five and four-star hotels operating in Jordan. In order to achieve the main goal, data of the study were acquired through 400 questionnaires of 37 items delivered to the study respondents. The study hypotheses were tested through Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The results of the paper showed that that shared domain knowledge, IT success, IT management sophistication, Employee satisfaction, and customer loyalty impact BIT alignment, while organization size did not. Further, the results revealed an impact imparted by BIT alignment on hotel financial performance. The results of this study contribute to the hotel industry by examining antecedent factors that enhance BIT alignment, and in turn, financial performance at five and four-star hotels operating in Jordan. Thus, the current study is a valuable addition to the literature in two ways namely in theory and in practice. Business Information Technology Alignment could also help firms learn more about information technology and increase their usage of it. Furthermore, Business Information Technology Alignment has the potential to attenuate the relationship between IT expenditure and corporate performance. This indicates that organizations can improve their performance just by aligning their business and information technology, without increasing their information technology investment. Also, the usage of IT systems assists the service business by improving service performance and increasing operational efficiency.