The role of public IT manager's strategic alignment leadership for e-government performance

Abstract

The previous researches on the role of IT mangers have been addressing the importance of aligning IT management decision-making with the company``s business strategies. IT manager``s strategic alignment leadership for information technology is the most critical factor for successful IT performance in the organization. The strategic alignment leadership reflects the capability of IT manager to balance the activities and satisfy the requirements from three dimensions of information technology- business process, organization and technology. The leadership for the managers involves a variety of skills and competencies that can be developed and influenced by the individual characteristics. The fit between the individual difference and leadership affects the organizational performance. With the rapid diffusion of information technology, the public organizations have undertaken e-government initiatives as well as administrative informatization in order to improve the internal and external business transactions. Consequently, there is growing interest of the role of IT managers for better e-government performance. Based on the literature review, this study identified and integrated four dimensional leadership required by IT managers. Through the integrative leadership frame-work, this study developed and tested a path model of individual characteristics, leadership and organizational performance in public sectors. The research model evaluates the impact of leadership and of individual characteristics on the e-government performance. Data is drawn from the email survey responses of 54 ward offices in 7 metro-politan cities in Korea. Results showed technical, organizational and strategic alignment leadership contribute to the e-government performance of local governments. The strategic alignment leadership has the strongest direct impact on the performance. IT manager``s age, rank and level of education are directly related to leadership. However, only the rank ind...