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Service organizations have to deal with increasing uncertainty in their environment. In the academic literature and in practice there is not much knowledge about how organizations can use information technology (IT) to deal with this uncertainty. This piece of work takes the first steps to develop theoretical knowledge on the conditions under which IT supports higher levels of agility. Business agility is the capability of organizations to swiftly change businesses and business processes beyond the normal level of flexibility to effectively manage highly uncertain and unexpected, but potentially consequential internal and external events. Empirical research was carried out via surveys and interviews in four industries and three public sectors. Four in-depth case studies were carried out within one service organization. The results show that in many large service organizations business agility is hampered by a lack of IT agility. Organization and alignment of processes and information systems via the cycle of sensing, responding and learning along with the alignment of business and IT are important conditions for improving business agility performance of service organizations.

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Dr Marcel van Oosterhout (1972) is senior project manager and scientific researcher at the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University Rotterdam. His expertise focuses on business agility and IT agility, IT in global supply chains and freight transport, and how IT enables future energy business and new ways of working.

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