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Top1. Introduction
In the digital era, continuous reinvention should become a priority for all organizations (Makhlouf & Allal-Chérif, 2019). The digital transformations occurring among firms are caused by the widespread use of digital technologies that triggers strategic responses from the part of such firms by developing digital business strategies (Vial, 2019). From an academic perspective, the disruptive effects of these technologies are more and more highlighted in fresh studies as Liu & Yu (2021) and Yang & Yi (2021). One of the hot topics attracting academicians and practitioners in the digital era is linked to the Big Data (BD) tools.
In recent years, BD technologies are transforming the way organizations work. Thus, it has become apparent that these technologies have proven to be beneficial in many business aspects. For instance, BD have the capability to contribute significantly in getting a competitive advantage. According to a survey conducted by EMC1, 57% of IT decision-makers in Saudi Arabia stated that they have achieved competitive advantage due to BD technologies. This illustrates the vital role played by such technologies in enhancing the competitive position of the organization (Bag et al., 2020; Cabrera-Sánchez & Villarejo-Ramos, 2020; Kumar & Krishnamoorthy, 2020; Raut et al., 2021). Furthermore, BD has the potential in reducing costs (Lee, 2017; Sultana et al., 2021), making strategic decisions (Almeida, 2018), as well as working as a support tool for the decision-making process (Côrte-Real et al., 2019).
Despite the significant benefits delivered by the use of BD analytics, many organizations are facing some challenges related to the factors that lead to a successful implementation of BD projects. As noted by Barham & Daim (2020), there is no agreed-upon reason for BD project failure, but rather there are many reasons related to many aspects. One of the reasons behind this failure is the alignment of the project with the business goals (Comuzzi & Patel, 2016). According to Desouza (2014), lack of strategic alignment of BD projects poses a critical challenge and puts the project under higher risk of failure; because the project will be operated in an isolated manner from the other organizational efforts. Indeed, BD strategy should be derived by the business strategy to ensure extracting valuable insights from such data. As noted by Côrte-Real et al. (2019), strategic alignment is one of the factors that facilitate the realization of BD business value. This means, making a big investment in such analytics without having a clear understanding of how the project supports the business may inhibit realizing the project's success (Gao et al., 2015). As such, a key factor for a successful implementation is to start by looking from a business perspective (Ohlhorst, 2012).
Even though the alignment is considered to be essential before the implementation process, achieving it remains difficult since it is one of the serious challenges organizations may confront. Prior studies have addressed many causal factors leading to the attainment of IT-business alignment e.g. (Alaeddini et al., 2017; Bhattacharya, 2017; Mezghani & Mezghani, 2014). However, very little attention has been paid to empirically assess the effect of organizational culture as an enabler of the strategic alignment (Ben Amar & Ben Romdhane, 2019; El-Mekawy & Rusu, 2011; Shao, 2019; Silvius et al., 2010).