| Summary: | Thesis (M.Com. (Information Systems))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, School of Economic and Business Sciences, 2015 === Information technology (IT) governance, which embodies how organisations arrange and manage their IT assets, continues to be of interest to those involved in the research and practice of information systems (IS). Most of the interest is because of the positive relationship between IT governance and organisational performance. Organisations are increasing their IT expenditure, which results in increased expectations by stakeholders. Public sector organisations have also gradually recognised the importance of IT governance to successful implementation of mandates, but the research conducted globally to understand how IT governance is actually implemented in the public sector has been limited.
A case study of ENTDEV (a public sector agency) was used to explore how IT governance implementation takes in a public sector organisation. The case study sought to understand how institutional influences (e.g. regulative, normative and cultural-cognitive) play a role in IT governance adoption and the selection of IT governance mechanisms, how IT governance implementation actually takes place and what IT outcomes are achieved as a result of the implementation - using institutional theory, IT governance mechanisms framework, and the IT outcomes framework, as lenses.
The case study identified regulatory influences as playing a role in IT governance adoption, and also uncovered the role of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) as important. Normative and culture cognitive influences were seen as not playing a role at the IT governance adoption stage. Regulatory and normative influences and the CIO have an influence in the implementation of IT governance mechanisms. The skills and capacity of people involved in implementing IT governance mechanisms, together with the positioning and organisation’s perception of IT are some of the issues that impact on IT governance implementation.
The study recognised cost effective use of IT and improved compliance as the immediate IT outcomes as a result of IT governance implementation. Strategy enablement outcomes are recognised over time. Informed by the empirical evidence and literature, a framework for IT governance implementation in public sector organisations is conceptualised as a contribution to theory. It is envisaged that the framework may be used by public sector institutions to improve their understanding of IT governance and subsequently improve how they implement IT governance.
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