Journal of StrategicInformation Systems 1995 4(2) 165-185 zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQP Benchmarking as a strategy for managing conflicting stakeholder perceptions of information systems Mary C Lacity School of Business Administration, University of Missouri-St Louis, St Louis, MO 63121-4499, USA Rudy Hirschheim College of Business Administration, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204-6283, USA The paper describes how failures to align information systems (IS) strategies in 18 US companies required IS managers to constantly justify their cost/service compromises to various stakeholders - senior executives, business unit managers, and end-users. IS managers tried to influence stakeholder perceptions with ‘soft’ evidence such as successful application projects, user endorsements, and other IS anecdotes. In addition, IS managers used benchmarks to provide more ‘objective’ evidence. Given the hostile environment caused by misalignment, some IS managers used a variety of tactics to manipulate the benchmarks to obtain a ‘good report card’, such as picking a reference group of only mediocre performers and undermining the integrity of the data collection process. We present a framework to understand the context of misalignment which can help stakeholders flush out their differences to arrive at a common strategy for the portfolio of IS activities. In the context of a shared strategy, benchmarks targeted at a performance improvement - rather than turf-protection - can be achieved. Keywords: benchmarks, information systems, business strategy Aligning information systems (IS) strategy with business strategy is heralded at the cornerstone of sound IS management (Scott Morton, 1990). In practice, however, various organizational obstacles hinder such alignment, including the IS function’s lack of power (Saunders and Scamell, 1986), lack of management participation (Jarvenpaa and Ives, 1991), poor chief executive officer (CEO)-chief information officer (CIO) relations (Feeney zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGF et al, 1992), implementation failure (Willcocks and Mason, 1987), low status of the CIO (Applegate and Elam, 1992; Pyburn, 1983), poor IS-user relations (Earl, 1988; Ward et al, 1990), inadequate user awareness Received August 1994; revised paper accepted for publication by Professor R D Galliers, February 1995 0963-8687 1995 Elsevier Science B.V. 165