Towards a definition of the role of enterprise modeling in the context of business and IT alignment

Sammanfattning: In order to solve a problem of Business and IT Alignment (BITA) it is important to consider various dimensions of it: strategic, structural, social and cultural. In the context of dealing with BITA, Enterprise Modeling (EM) is an acknowledged and widely used practice. On one hand, EM facilitates the creation of integrated models that capture and represent different focal areas of an enterprise, there-fore it allowing to obtain a multidimensional view on an enterprise and to inte-grate these multiple dimensions into a coherent structure. These capabilities make EM a powerful tool for dealing with the strategic and structural dimen-sions of BITA. On the other hand, solving a BITA problem requires dealing with the numerous points of view of the stakeholders and creating a shared under-standing between them, which refers to the social and cultural dimensions of BITA. In this regard EM is also able to provide support to the development of an understanding about the current multidimensional praxis and future vision and strategies. Thus, EM has a high potential for dealing with the strategic, structur-al, social and cultural dimensions of BITA. This licentiate thesis investigates the applicability of EM in the light of BITA and proposes a framework that allocates intentions of EM application within the frame of the Strategic Alignment Model. The framework positions EM conceptually in the context of BITA and identifies a number of EM challenges and recommendations to suggest how EM can be used to facilitate BITA.