A sociotechnical approach towards alignment

In order to manage the complexity of the alignment problem, we introduce the construct of workpractices as the main unit of analysis. A workpractice is a meaningful, goal oriented social entity where some actors produce a result that other actors need. The development of products or services provided by an organization is accomplished by coordinating the results of cooperating workpractices. Alignment is achieved by either adjusting the coordination between workpractices or adjusting internal workpractice elements such as processes and support systems. To make this approach operational, we suggest structuring a workpractice according to the Activity Domain Theory—a new theory for coordinating human activity. In this theory, particular emphasis is placed on the achievement of common understanding among the actors. Some results from applying this approach in the Ericsson telecommunication company are discussed. The findings indicate that the proposed approach is a promising way towards achieving and maintaining alignment. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.