Investigating the Effect of Intellectual and Social Alignment on Organizational Agility 

ABSTRACT

In this study, the impact of business-IT alignment on organizational agility was investigated. The research data were collected from 139 employees of Qazvin Telecommunication Company from Iranian telecommunication areas and analyzed by structural equation modeling (SEM) and path analysis using AMOS software. Results obtained from the analysis of the research data show that intellectual alignment in the organization can increase agility by influencing inertia as a mediator factor, does not confirm the positive effect of intellectual alignment on organizational agility, moreover social alignment with emergent coordination mediation has a positive effect on organizational agility, whereas intellectual alignment with organizational inertia mediation has no significant effect on organizational agility. 

Keywords: Business-IT Alignment, Intellectual Alignment, Social Alignment, Agility, Inertia, Emergent Coordination

Nowadays organizations face many changes in their environment that adjustment and compatibility in their activities and strategies seem necessary, due to these changes, to survive in the competitive market, a highly competitive and consequently changing environment surrounds the organization and in this competitive and changing environment, organizational agility, i.e. the capability of effective and prompt response, has become an important organizational competency which can have profound effects on the performance of that organization (Draven & Gunther, 1994).

In this regard, Ferrier (2001), by studying numerous empirical investigations, states: “Companies that are capable of taking prompt reaction and innovative actions to their business environment changes can improve their performance in that environment”;

that is, organizational agility positively affects the companies’ performance. But what can agile tools be? In a 2018 study, Ravichandran responded to this question that: “In this competitive and dynamic business environment of organizations, Information Technology (IT) can be regarded as a tool for companies’ agility” which has been studied by many researchers. It can be argued that IT infrastructure enables the organization to effectively identify and respond to customer needs, increasing organizational agility (Roberts & Grover, 2012). In a study by Lu & Ramamurthy (2011), they found that IT infrastructural capabilities, the synergy between IT and business, and taking an IT active position could transform a firm into an agile firm, at the same year, Tallow & Pinsonneault also converge somehow to the result of Lu& Ramamurthy, stating: "The strategic alignment of corporate IT affects its agility." They continue in the research that:

 "Companies with a high level of IT alignment can use IT resources to increase organizational agility, adapt to external changes, and ultimately improve their competitive situation" and this shows the importance of their research in the IT alignment area. 

However, findings of the researchers show the positive impact of IT alignment on corporate performance (Gerow, J. E., Grover, V., Thatcher, J. B., & Roth, P. L., 2014), some researchers believe that alignment can lead to an adhesion trap, companies face reduced flexibility and inability to respond quickly to changing market conditions (Benbya & McKelvey, 2006; Chen et al., 2008). In this regard, based on numerous studies conducted by researchers, Business-IT alignment has helped organizations in a variety of ways (namely return on investment in the IT area, identifying the true value of IT, and the improvement in the use of IT (e.g., Charoensuk, S., Wongsurawat, W., & Khang, D. B., 2014)), that is the relationship between IT alignment and corporate performance in the conducted studies are positive, some findings indicate IT alignment in some circumstances reduces corporate productivity (Gerow et.al, 2014).

Given what stated and taken into account that no company is excluded from this turbulent market and must survive in a dynamic and changing environment and given that in the current era companies have become involved with IT, it’s ascertainable that how these companies are affected by IT alignment in the direction of organizational agility. The question is whether these organizations have been able to create an agile company resulting from the alignment between business and IT strategies? And how is the relationship between alignment and organizational agility?

Studies also show that Business-IT alignment moderates the relationship between IT investment and corporate performance and companies can increase their performance without the necessity to increase IT investment by promoting the alignment between business and IT (Charoensuk et al., 2014).

Now that companies are spending a lot of money on information technology and information systems and are on the path to organizational agility based on their need, their situation regarding the extent to which IT is involved in implementing business strategies and its impact on organizational agility is the reason for how they operate facing environmental changes which highlight the importance of this research. In other words, it is necessary to examine the impact of IT alignment with business strategies in the line of agility.

Following the discussion, after research literature and acquaintance with research concepts, research conceptual model and its related components are introduced, followed by the research hypotheses based on the conceptual model. Then, the research methodology including data analysis and research hypotheses testing, validity and reliability as well as sample size, etc. are studied and after analyzing the research data, the results are expressed and finally, the general conclusion is presented along with the final research model.

The present study, which examines the impact of social and intellectual alignment (of Business-IT alignment dimensions) on organizational agility, has several implications that are addressed in this section:

Organizational Agility:

Organizational agility, as a flexible response capacity to environmental changes by rapidly adapting products and prompt offering services, is increasingly becoming a stable and viable competitive advantage for organizations (Singh, J., Sharma, G., Hill, J., & Schnackenberg, A., 2013) and is always significant for companies to achieve competitive advantage.

As agility has a major impact on organizational performance in unstable markets (Tallon & Pinsonneault, 2011); its importance (ability to predict, compatibility, compliance, and decisive response to environmental events) has increased greatly (Baškarada, S., & Koronios, A., 2018).

There are various definitions for the organization’s agility, none of which contradict each other, all of which emphasize speed and flexibility as key factors to achieve agility and following definitions can be expressed:

“Agility is generally the result of awareness of the changes (opportunities and challenges) in the internal and external environment as well as the ability of the organization to use resources to deal with these changes at the time with appropriate flexibility (Braunscheidel, M. J., & Suresh, N. C., 2009)” or “Extensive capability to understand and show an effective response to market opportunities and threats (Sambamurthy, V., Bharadwaj, A., & Grover, V., 2003).” 

Many aspects and dimensions can be conceived for agility, such as Strategic Agility that refers to the capacity to discover and understand and employing opportunities, Portfolio Agility that points to the capacity of rapidly and effectively transfer of resources between commercial areas, Operational Agility that points out to exploitation capacity of opportunities in the current business model (Sull D., 2010), Resource Agility which deals with the access to technological and human resources, and Process Agility which refers to the flexibility of main processes, and the Relationship Agility that deals with the nature of interactions between beneficiaries (Sarker, S., & Sarker, S., 2009).

To achieve agility in a system, every organization needs enablers to guide that system to achieve its goals; since they directly affect the organization's ability to respond promptly and effectively to dynamic and unpredictable changes in the organizational environment. Enablers include partnerships, information technology, customer relationship management, change management, learning, knowledge management, teamwork, integration, alignment, etc., that in a general view, we can consider the IT and business strategy alignment as a concept involving several enablers.

Business-IT Alignment:

Information systems and information technology provide the tools to succeed in business operations, innovation, and growth. To take advantage of all the benefits, innovation has emerged as Business-IT alignment, and subsequently, various researches have shown the positive effects of Business-IT alignment on corporate performance (Buchalcevova, A., & Pour, J., 2018).

There are multiple definitions for Business-IT alignment, but the following definition can be used generally:

“The extent to which IT mission and strategies support business mission and strategies. In other words, it shows the degree of suitability and integration between business strategy, IT strategy, business infrastructures, and IT infrastructures (Henderson, J. C., & Venkatraman, H., 1993).”

As Society for Information Management (SIM) shows, IT alignment is still one of the main priorities for Chief Information Officers (CIOs) (Forrest C., 2016). Recent research shows that agility, which is known as the capability to effectively understand and respond to market opportunities and threats, is a central mediator between IT alignment and corporate performance. Companies with a high level of alignment can use IT resources to increase organizational agility, adapt to external changes, and finally improve performance (Tallon & Pinsonneault, 2011).

Business-IT alignment has been studied since the early 1980s, and information system researchers suggest two main ways to measure Business-IT alignment: one has been developed by Reich & Benbasta (1996 & 2000), pointing out to two dimensions. Social Alignment (social dimension) and Intellectual Alignment (intellectual dimension); The other is based on Henderson and Venkatraman's (1993) Strategic Convergence Model, which includes six dimensions: Business Strategy, IT Strategy, Organizational Infrastructures, Organizational Processes, IT infrastructures, and IT processes.

In this study, we follow the classification of Reich & Benbasta (1996, 2000), since it’s theoretically brief, used in various researches, and includes both existing strategies and human actors. Studies on the intellectual dimensions focus on program contents and planning methods, while those dealing with social dimensions are focused on individuals (people who are involved in creating alignment).

According to Reich & Benbasta (2000), intellectual alignment refers to a case in which there is a set of related IT and business strategies, while social alignment is a situation in which business and IT managers understand each other's missions, goals, and plans mutually and are committed to them. Social alignment determines the methods of strategies formulating and implementation, the degree of internal compatibility and external validity of missions, business and IT missions goals and strategies, and on the other hand, the effect of intellectual alignment on artifacts such as strategic plans is obvious and explicit, while social alignment has an implicit effect that emerges in a mutual understanding (Liang, H., Wang, N., Xue, Y., & Ge, S., 2017).

Based on Reich & Benbasta's (1996, 2000) research on the dimensions of Business-IT alignment, i.e. Intellectual and Social Alignment, there are two theories for a coherent explanation of Business-IT alignment in the organization, first the organizational inertia theory in which intellectual alignment can hinder organizational agility through creating typical resources and inflexibilities, and second the alignment theory in which social alignment can facilitate an effective alignment between business and IT, when sudden changes occur, increasing organizational agility.

Intellectual and Social alignment may have negative effects on agility. Intellectual alignment reflects the artificial and sophisticated alignment between business and IT strategies that have been formalized in organizations through hierarchical control, structural design, motivational systems, and resource allocation. Organizational plans and contexts are effective when they are fitted to the current environment. If environmental changes occur, it may create barriers in which companies make their adjustments and adoptions easily. In contrast, social alignment represents a common understanding between business and IT managers that is not a distinctive artifact and artificial product. Its impacts help them to make coordinate efforts to identify and respond to changes through the provision of other activities, such as communication and collaboration between business and IT managers during strategy formulation and implementation (Liang, H. et al., 2017).

Social Alignment:

Social alignment has traditionally emphasized the interactions between business and IT managers that enable integrated knowledge development (Moon, Y. J., Choi, M., & Armstrong, D. J., 2018). Researches on Business-IT alignment focused has examined considering the social aspects of alignment, and the importance of informal and relationship-based structures (Chan, Y. E., 2008).

Wagner, Beimborn, and Weitzel (2014) regard social alignment as social capital that exists between the business and IT sectors and its output is integrated knowledge of business and IT.

In the literature, Business-IT alignment social capital is used to conceptualize the social dimension of alignment (Karahanna, E., & Preston, D. S., 2013), which can be extended to the operational level (Wagner et al., 2014).

The mechanisms and internal strengths of social alignment are described by the extensive use of social capital theory; so that social capital provides a basis for knowledge exchange and incorporation, thus contributes to the creation of intellectual capital by how much IT staff and business staff trust and respect each other and each other's work. Another important aspect of a strong relationship between business and IT is the extent to which staffs in both departments regularly consult on issues related to business and IT processes (Schlosser, F., Beimborn, D., Weitzel, T., & Wagner, H. T., 2015); on the other hand, it has to be said that social alignment also refers to the promotion and enhancement of intellectual alignment (Tai, J. C., Wang, E. T., & Yeh, H. Y., 2019).

Social alignment emphasizes the interconnection between business and IT executives and calls for integrated knowledge creation; on the other hand, social alignment can be also stated, as contemplative, of three relation-focused aspects that is structural, cognitive, and relational, as described below (Moon et al., 2018):

• Structural relationship

• Cognitive relationship 

• Relational relationship

Defining the social dimension of alignment means that social alignment is a situation in which business and IT managers understand each other in an organizational unit and are committed to the mission, goals, and plans of business and IT (Reich & Benbasta, 2000).

Intellectual Alignment: 

The strategic alignment model of an organization demonstrates the need to integrate business and IT areas at three levels (Henderson & Venkatraman, 1999):

1. Strategy (external integration)

2. Infrastructure (internal integration)

3. Infrastructures and strategies (cross-integration)

External integration indicates the alignment of business and IT strategies; this type of alignment is referred to as strategic or intellectual alignment (Chan, Y. E., & Reich, B. H.,2007; Reich & Benbasta, 1996), and in other words, it’s defined as “The degree of sharing and support of existing mission, goals, and programs in business strategy with the information system strategy” (Gerow, J. E., Grover, V., & Thatcher, J., 2016). Internal integration is the alignment between business and IT infrastructures and processes; this type of alignment is referred to as operational alignment and is defined as “the relationship between organizational infrastructures and information system’s infrastructures and processes” (Henderson & Venkatraman, 1999).

In the study of intellectual alignment, we find that companies mainly focus on IT-related strategies. This usually includes promoting the company image as a quality provider through customer intimacy, innovation, product development, and brand management. Information technology supports intellectual alignment by providing service areas to companies with the ability to pursue the required customer plans, including automation and relationship management through the customer life cycle. Intellectual alignment can create a stable competitive advantage, as it helps companies to attract and exploit IT capabilities uniquely (Gerow et al., 2016). Intellectual alignment occurs when both business and IT have a common interest to create or enhance business value, both current and future, through the creative use of technology (Pachory, A., P.103, 2018).

According to Reich and Benbasta (2000), intellectual alignment is a situation in which there is a set of high-quality related relationships and proprieties of IT and business plans. In this view, if a business lacks a formal and documented plan, alignment is difficult for it to achieve, at best, alignment should be visible at all organizational levels, including organizational level, project level, and individual/cognitive level (Chan & Reich, 2007).

The intellectual dimension of alignment means the intellectual alignment has the above definition, represents a high-quality set of mutually interconnected business and IT applications (Reich & Benbasta, 2000), and refers to business and IT in the same intellectual area in which provides technological innovation, adoption, and union to create an environment where its information technology is a reliable guide to business in its evolution.

Researchers have extensively investigated the intellectual dimension of business-IT alignment, which means to what extent IT strategies and processes are formulated, implemented, and performed to support key business strategies and processes (Zhaou, Liu, Fang & Hua, 2018); That said, intellectual alignment in organizations is of particular importance, as information systems’ strategy can lead to business strategy or cause a delay (inertia); to achieve intellectual alignment, the IT department needs the development of information systems strategy based on both business strategy and opportunities presented by the external environment (Tai et al., 2019).

Organizational Inertia:

Given that the business environment is in a state of evolution or change over time, individuals and platforms, strong, intangible, and subtle strengths in organizations have still greatness that should be understood and exploited productively, otherwise, they will be counted as organization weakness. These strengths can stop change and threaten the company's survival. Organizational inertia and the size of the organizational culture move are of these strengths (Cushman & King, P.25-107, 1995).

The literature of organizational theory defines organizational inertia as “inability to accommodate internal changes against significant external changes” (Gilbert, P.741, 2005), and “continuity of existing form and function” (Rumelt, P.2, 1995). If the organizational status quo is ineffective, inertia may the main cause of organizational failure (Rumelt, 1995); meaning that the higher the degree of downturn and cohesion of the organization, the greater effort to overcome organizational inertia and making internal changes resulted from threats or external opportunities such as IT innovations are needed (Besson & Rowe, 2012). Hence, the inertia results from the difference in velocity between changes in environmental conditions and internal reorganization (March, P.566, 1981).

Organizational inertia can be regarded as the resistance of an organization to change and the organization's inability to respond promptly and effectively to changes. In this case, of course, there is a paradox in organizational inertia that while there is a tendency for resistant strengths against change to reinforce existing management practices, creates also strength to maintain the status quo that involves change itself.

Studies in both fields of management science and information systems have discussed various aspects of inertia in various concepts and at different levels of analysis (Furneaux & Wade, 2010; Besson & Rowe, 2012), including (Steffi Haag, 2014):

• Organizational inertia as a barrier to organizational changes;

• Organizational inertia as a barrier to IT adoption;

Cohesion to and dependence on existing patterns of organization leads to inefficiency and non-productivity, in which case overcoming organizational inertia is necessary to adapt and rearrangement the organization with its environment, which can affect organizational agility. On the other hand, there are different levels of organizational inertia about the phenomenon of organizational transformation based on IT in researches related to management and information systems areas, which can be summarized as follows (Besson & Rowe, 2012):

• In all analysis units, social and cognitive aspects should play an important role;

• Effective factors at the business or industry level are social, technical, economic, and political;

• Group or individual level, a negative psychological attitude may be done based on the threat’s perception.

Emergent Coordination: 

Coordination “meaning a temporary or long-term process of input regulations and interactive relationship for the realization of collective performance” is the main objective of the organization in which heterogeneous measures must be taken to achieve common goals. Sequence and scheduling organize and balance interdependent interactions within an organization and include managing concurrent activities and actions, information exchanging, adjusting, and matching the actions. Researches on coordination show that due to increasing environmental fluctuations and uncertainties, formal methods are often overlooked because of what is happening in organizations, and coordination is more dependent on informal mechanisms. Given that the assumption of predicting the organizational environment, so that formal coordination mechanisms can be pre-programmed and designed, is unrealistic, the recent conceptualization of coordination (emergent coordination) suggests that in a dynamic and time-constrained environment, coordination must be for responding promptly to external changes, informally and originated from the environment and changes (Liang et al., 2017).

There are two types of coordination in the organization to investigate: Planned Coordination and Emergent Coordination. Emergent coordination is usually distinct from planned coordination. In planned coordination, the factors develop the obvious goals. Emergent coordination also includes proportionality between factors during ongoing actions. In this case, the focus is on the common actions and measures that occur through lower-level cognitive mechanisms or the connection and coupling of action with perception. An example could be the tendency to behave similarly and simultaneously with others when performing the same action (Martens, 2018).

Emergent coordination may play an important role in the development of collective desires and goals so those common goals can be described. As Martens (2018) points out in his research, Dale, Tollefsen, and Knoblich seek to create a more sophisticated framework that links emergent coordination and common goals. They also argue that emergent coordination singly can be sufficient for joint actions and activities. However, they explicitly state that this can lead to the formation of collective goals. It can start commonly through low-level mechanisms (emergent coordination), which will later be complemented by more profound commitments to planned coordination and collective goals.

The definition of emergent coordination is the intermittent process of input regulation and the interpretation of interaction for the realization of collective performance based on informal communication and mechanisms (Liang et al., 2017).

Emergent coordination, based on the exchange of information and communication, enables companies to feel the changes in the external environment. Besides, emergent coordination between business and IT executives can facilitate their collaboration to provide IT-based solutions or business models promptly to achieve competitive advantage (Rai & Tang, 2013). Emergent coordination at the executive level allows general long-term mutual alignment to penetrate and guide the organization, increasing organizational agility. Since self-organization is preferred for organizations to respond complex and environmentally-emergent situations, through accepting and authorizing individuals and groups, to solve problems without prior planning and decision-making hierarchical intervention (Vessey & Ward, 2013), so emergent coordination in this research has been considered to interpret alignment in common actions to increase organizational agility.

As information technology is not a subject to be overlooked because it exists in many organizational departments and all organizations, depending on the functionality context of that organization, IT is parallel to other organizational developing issues in all respects, such as infrastructures and staff skills, etc., so strategies are also planned and implemented for IT aligned with business; hence, there would be business-IT alignment subject which involves different dimensions that can be viewed in different various researches. The alignment itself, concerning the literature stated in many studies (not all studies though, as a few studies have shown direct impact), has been shown to not directly affect organizational agility, but can affect agility indirectly and through intermediates. One aspect of alignment’s dimension introduced by Reich and Benbasta (2000) is the intellectual and social alignment mentioned earlier.

In this study, given organizational inertia (Gilbert, 2005) and coordination theory (Okhuysena & Bechky, 2009), we use a conceptual model which indicates how intellectual and social alignment (as two dimensions of business-IT alignment) affect organizational agility through two intermediate factors organizational inertia and emergent coordination.

The conceptual model used in this study relates to the study of Liang, Nianxin Wang, Yajiong Xue, and Shilun Geb in 2017, considering the dual dimensions of Reich and Benbasta (2000) shown in Figure 1:

Intellectual alignment: Refers to the sharing and support degree of existing mission, goals, and plans in business strategy with information system (technology) strategy (Gerow et al., 2016) in the same intellectual area which provides technological innovations, acceptance, and unity to create an environment where IT is a reliable guide to the business on its evolution path.

Social alignment: A situation in which business and IT executives in an organizational unit have a mutual understanding and are committed to each other's mission, goals, and plans jointly (Reich & Benbasta, 2000).

Inertia: The companies’ tendency to maintain organizational stability and deployment, such as strategy and structure despite environmental changes (Hannan and Freeman, 1984).

Emergent coordination: The process of conceptualizing input regulation and cross-interpretations to realize collective performance based on mechanism and informal communication (Faraj and Xiao, 2006; Okhuysena and Bechky, 2009).

Agility: The ability and capability at an extensive level to understand and respond effectively to market opportunities and threats (Sambamurthy, Bharadwaj, Grover, 2003).

Research Hypotheses

The research hypotheses that are examined the literature in this study can be expressed as main hypotheses and sub-hypotheses:

Main hypothesis:

Intellectual and social alignment has a positive effect on the organizational agility of Qazvin Telecommunication Company.

Sub-Hypotheses:

• Inertia in the organization harms the organization’s agility. (H1)

• Intellectual alignment has a positive effect on the organization’s inertia. (H2)

• Emergent coordination has a positive effect on organizational agility. (H3)

• Social alignment has a positive effect on emergent coordination. (H4)

• Social alignment attenuates the effect of intellectual alignment on organizational inertia. (H5)

The present study seeks to identify and investigate the challenges facing organizations and managers in turbulent market and dynamic ever-changing organizational environment, utilizing fundamental sciences and various research outcomes, and identify pathways and dimensions that are heuristic to organizational strategies in IT alignment field, and this can be a light for relevant executives to make organizational strategies operative aligned with IT more openly and knowledgeably.

This study has been conducted in Qazvin Telecommunication Company which comprises all offices and telecommunication centers of Qazvin province and its statistical population is the staff of Qazvin Telecommunication Company with a bachelor's degree and above and expert and above expert positions.

Data analysis methods and testing research hypotheses

In this study, to test the hypotheses and to analyze the input data of questionnaires, the structural equation modeling method in AMOS software has been used to investigate the relationship between research variables.

Much effort has been made coherently in recent decades to examine the causal relationships between variables. One of these promising approaches in the field is structural equation modeling or multivariate analysis with latent variables. Regardless of its name or numerous meanings, the term refers to a series of generic models which include confirmatory factor analysis, classical simultaneous structural models, path analysis, multiple regressions, variance analysis, and other statistical methods.

Covariance analysis of structures or causal modeling or structural equation modeling is one of the main analyzing methods of complex data structures.

Generalized path analysis is a multivariate regression method regarding formulating causal models. We use linear regression analysis when we intend to predict the linear combination of the relationship between the independent variable and the dependent variable; However, the issue with this approach is that we can only predict the direct effect of each independent variable on the dependent variable and it is not possible to identify the indirect effects of the independent variables on the dependent variable. In such a case we cannot examine the theoretical conceptual model of research, which is usually a theoretical model consisting of relationships between independent variables. To solve such a problem, we can use the path analysis method; therefore, the generalized path analysis is the multivariate regression method to formulating causal models (Habibpour & Safari, 2016).

This study uses confirmatory factor analysis since it is a continuation of previous research (Liang et al., 2017) and a previously formulated and confirmed questionnaire has been employed; In other words, the constructs, variables, and factors in this study have been evaluated in previous researches and this study evaluates whether the questions which are selected to introduce the construct or latent variable really introduce it and how accurately the questions introduce or fit the latent variable.

Validity and Reliability 

Reliability means that the measurement tool is error-free and unbiased so that produces consistent and aligned results at different times and places (Sekaran, P.203, 2003). There are several methods for measuring reliability and Cronbach’s alpha coefficient is used in this study and to measure the questionnaire’s validity the average variance extracted (AVE), as well as confirmatory factor analysis, is used.

Sample size

Determining the minimum required sample size to gather data on structural equation modeling is of great importance. Although there is no general agreement on the sample size required for factor analysis and structural models, many researchers suppose the minimum sample size is 200. On the other hand, in exploratory factor analysis, 10 to 20 samples are required per variable, but a minimum sample size of 200 is defensible.

Although in confirmatory factor analysis, the minimum sample size is determined by factors, not variables. If structural equation modeling is used, approximately 20 samples are required for each factor (latent variable). The recommended sample size for confirmatory factor analysis is approximately 200 samples for ten factors.

However, there is no obvious answer to sample size in structural equation modeling, as each research is different in terms of population characteristics and the number of structures used in a model. Zainudin Awang (2012, p. 24), referring to Hair et al. (2010), provides suggestions following Table 1 for the minimum sample size, depending on the model complexity and the characteristics of the initial measurement model. Therefore, in the study, according to the number of constructs as well as the indices (number of each construct questions in the questionnaire) as well as Table 1, the sample size of 100 and above was identified appropriately.

In this study two field and library methods are used. A library method was used to gather information on theoretical and research background and a questionnaire was used to gather research data. A total of 33 questions are used in the questionnaire. The questionnaire’s questions were extracted from previous research on this topic. To reach the respondents in this study, two methods of the internet (online) and in-person questionnaires were used, determining the sample, 140 questionnaires were submitted in person and 40 questionnaires were presented online. Out of 180 questionnaires, 139 were completed and delivered, and following the above table and given that number of latent constructs are 5, including the sample size. The questionnaire consists of two parts. The first part includes demographic questions such as gender, education, organizational position, and work experience, including 4 questions. Then there are questions about research variables, which include 29 questions. The variables are divided into main variables and mediation variables, each scaled and responsive as a 7-point Likert scale (strongly agree, agree, somewhat agree, no idea, somewhat disagree, disagree, strongly disagree).

Cronbach's alpha coefficient was used for reliability and validity will be desirable if this coefficient is greater than 0.7.

In addition to evaluating the content validity of the questionnaire by relevant experts, the convergent validity was also determined using structural equation modeling and Amos software (considering the model structure, sample size, and type of factor analysis which is confirmatory, AMOS software was chosen). It has also been investigated. According to Magner et al. (1996), the convergence criterion of validity is that the average variance extracted (AVE) to be greater than 0.4 and, on the other hand, as shown in Figure 2, the factor loading of each questionnaire’s question is also greater than 0.4 which indicates the validity of research questionnaire.

Considering the diagram in Figure 1, it can be said that questions of structures or variables having a factor loading greater than 0.4 are significant; and questions with a factor loading less than 0.4 are eliminated from the model, and the other measures the relevant variable in the research measurement model.

As can be seen in Table 2, the research variables, as well as the questionnaire, have the desired reliability and validity and the results and data obtained from the questionnaire can be used in the present study. The research model has been analyzed using the goodness of fit indices and the results are presented in Table 3.

Based on the indices obtained in Table3 it can be said that the model has desirable goodness of fit.

To test the research hypotheses, computational statistics and the corresponding probability levels are used and the SOBEL test is used to review hypotheses with mediating variables.

For sub-hypothesis 1 indicating the negative effect of inertia on agility, the path’s coefficient is 0.11 and the significance level is greater than 0.05; so, due to the coefficient’s non-significance, the hypothesis indicating negative effect is not confirmed, i.e. organizational inertia does not affect on organizational agility.

For sub-hypothesis 2 indicating the positive effect of intellectual alignment on inertia, the path’s coefficient is 0.36 and the significance level is less than 0.05; therefore, considering the positive and significance of this factor, the hypothesis is confirmed, that is, intellectual alignment has a direct and significant effect on inertia.

For sub-hypothesis 3 indicating the positive effect of emergent coordination on organizational agility based on the results, the path’s coefficient is 0.75 and the significance level is less than 0.05; so, the hypothesis is confirmed i.e. emergent coordination has a positive effect on agility.

For sub-hypothesis 4 indicating the positive effect of social alignment on emergent coordination the path’s coefficient is 0.78 and the significance level is less than 0.05; therefore, considering the positive and significance of this coefficient, the hypothesis is confirmed, in other words, the hypothesis of the positive effect of social alignment on intellectual alignment is confirmed.

To test the fifth hypothesis (H5) and investigating the effect of the social alignment moderating variable, hierarchical regression and, coefficient of determination differences () are used. Considering Table 5, if by interactive variable entry (obtained by multiplying the moderator variable by independent variables of the research) there would be a significant change in the coefficient of determination, the moderating role of the social alignment variable is accepted; otherwise, the moderating role is rejected. Therefore, it is observed that in Model 2, with defined moderator entry the coefficient of determination differences has increased by 1.1%, (which this difference is not significant (the significance level is less than 0.05), so the above hypothesis is not confirmed.

Testing the effect of organizational inertia mediator variable on the relationship between intellectual alignment and organizational agility as well as the effect of social alignment on organizational agility mediated by emergent coordination, the SOBEL test, which is used for the significance of mediating effect of a variable on the relationship between two other variables, is applied.

Table 6 shows the test results related to the two parts of the main hypothesis. In part a, the hypothesis is not confirmed, since the significance level of this test is greater than 0.05, and in part b of the main hypothesis the significance level is less than 0.05 and so the hypothesis is confirmed. In other words, the hypothesis of intellectual alignment’s positive effect on agility is rejected, while the positive effect of social alignment on agility is confirmed.

Hegang Liang et al. (2017) in their research studying the effect of organizational inertia on organizational agility found that organizational inertia has a significantly negative and inverse effect on organizational agility. This means that decreasing organizational inertia can increase organizational agility, which is inconsistent with the findings of the present study that did not confirm the significant effect of inertia on agility.

Given that intellectual alignment can increase organizational inertia and sometimes adherence by creating resources and typical inflexibilities, it can be expected to have a positive and high effect on organizational inertia, so as it has been shown, supports the positive effect of intellectual alignment on organizational inertia and has a direct and positive effect on it. That is, the greater the intellectual alignment increases within the organization, the more the organizational inertia.

The findings of this study, which considers the positive effect of intellectual alignment on organizational inertia, are in line with the findings of Huygens et al. (2017). In his study, Huygang et al. found a positive and significant effect for the relationship of intellectual alignment on organizational inertia, in that increasing intellectual alignment in the organization increases organizational inertia. On the other hand, this hypothesis, which is the first part of the main hypothesis, that the existence of intellectual alignment in the organization can increase agility by influencing inertia as a mediator factor, does not confirm the positive effect of intellectual alignment on organizational agility. In other words, according to hypothesis 2 test result (H2), which confirms the positive effect of intellectual alignment on inertia, increased intellectual alignment in the organization increases inertia, and according to hypothesis 1 (H1), that the effect of inertia on agility was not confirmed, increased intellectual alignment in the organization cannot be considered as a reason for declining organizational agility.

On the other hand, since emergent coordination includes proportionality among factors during ongoing actions, how it affects organizational agility emphasizes the importance of considering it. This hypothesis suggests that by increasing emergent coordination in the organization, agility will also increase. Therefore, the results of the present study indicate that increasing the level of emergent coordination in the organization can increase organizational agility, in other words, emergent coordination has a positive and direct effect on organizational agility.

On one hand, social alignment, which emphasizes the interaction between business executives and IT, can influence emergent coordination in the organization directly and positively. It can be concluded that social alignment has a positive effect on emergent coordination, in other words, increasing social alignment in the organization will result in a high increase of emergent coordination.

According to the second part of the main hypothesis, increasing the amount of social alignment increases emergent coordination and on the other hand, according to the study’s results, increasing the emergent coordination increases organizational agility which implies the hypothesis confirmation. In other words, increasing social alignment through emergent coordination’s mediation leads to the promotion of organizational agility and social alignment is effective in increasing organizational agility.

Considering that intellectual alignment has a positive effect on organizational inertia, i.e. increases it; hypothesis 5 (H5) suggests that increasing social alignment can reduce the effect of social alignment on organizational inertia’s increase. According to the results that do not support this hypothesis, we cannot accept the effective attenuation of intellectual alignment on inertia. Thus, increasing or decreasing social alignment does not affect the relationship between intellectual alignment and organizational inertia.

One of the important issues to note is the differences between different individuals and communities. Some of the previously accepted hypotheses were rejected in this study, namely the negative effect of organizational inertia on organizational agility that the results of this research did not show a significant effect and/ or the positive effect of intellectual alignment on agility with inertia mediation as well as effect attenuation of intellectual alignment on inertia. This may be due to the difference between ideals and the organization’s status quo and the leadership style, etc. and it may also have different intra-extra organizational reasons that can be studied. Causes such as organizational resistance, lack of coordination between organizational departments, authority conflicts, as well as factors like external organizational forces affecting the organization management or, in general, macroeconomic status on the organizational economy and others.

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