Alignment of IT and the Business: A Study of Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance

Recently, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 was adopted by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and has been described as One of the most influential and controversial-pieces of corporate legislation ever to have hit a statute book (The Economist, 2005). A hypothesized and perhaps uninten­ded side effect of the required compliance efforts is increased alignment between Information Technology (IT) and business units. The ability for US-based organizations to attain alignment between business and technology departments is a perennial high priority initiative when IT issues are discussed. Existing literature and research on compliance efforts as drivers for alignment are limited. This study utilized a survey based on Luftman's (2003) six IT-Business alignment criteria and scoring tool, modified to include specific questions on compliance efforts on alignment. These questions were developed by the researcher to gather evidence on the linkage of Sarbanes-Oxley compliance with the current state of alignment. The results of the study argue that there is a linkage between alignment and compliance efforts.