Endnotes
1
Two exceptions and noteworthy initiatives undertaken to address the development of a cumulative body of knowledge and skills are the organization of a special 'IT Governance research track' at the 35th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (2002), and the IT Governance Institute
, established by the Information Systems Audit and Control Association ISACA
in 1998.
2
Theoretically, there are eight distinct federal patterns in IT Governance (excluding the completely centralized and the fully decentralized IT Governance model).
3
IT application decisions address applications prioritization and planning, budgeting, and the delivery of application services.
4
IT development involves blending knowledge of business processes and functions with IT infrastructure capabilities along the complete IT systems development life cycle.
5
In a federal IT Governance model, enterprise IT infrastructure decisions are always allocated to a central corporate IT office. IT infrastructure decisions address the hardware/software platforms, network and data architectures, and the standards for procurement and deployment of IT resources.
6
The systems view (Ashby, 1956; Von Bertalanffy, 1968) is based on
cybernetic
principles (Wiener, 1956), which draws upon the Greek word
Kubernesis
— steersmanship, the task of keeping a ship on its course in the midst of unexpected changing circumstances.
7
Organization Design Economics is an interdisciplinary field of study based on the work of, e.g., March & Simon, 1958; Cyert & March, 1963; Lawrence & Lorsch, 1967, 1969; Thompson, 1967; Galbraith, 1973, 1994; Daft & Lengel, 1984; 1986; Williamson, 1996; Malone & Crowston, 1994; Hitt et al., 1998; Nadler & Tushman, 1998.
Chapter 3:
An Emerging Strategy for E-Business IT Governance
Nandish V. Patel
Brunel University, UK
Copyright 2004, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is
prohibited
.
Abstract
A critical aspect of global e-business information technology (IT) governance is ensuring that it is integrated and that it enables economic viability of a company. Poorly thought through purposes will result in poor IT Governance. The aim is to improve IT Governance and business efficiency and effectiveness. A framework for global e-business IT Governance is developed. It is based on fundamental re-directions in global e-business IT Governance thinking and it applies to companies that seek to integrate Internet, intranet and WWW technologies into their business activities in some form of an e-business model. Such integration is termed the fusion of IT and business into an e-business. The framework explains and elaborates e-business strategies for coping with emergent organisations and planned aspects of IT. The basic
premise
of the proposed framework is that organisation,
especially
virtual organisation, is both planned and emergent, diverging from the dominant premise of central control in IT Governance.
Introduction
In essence, e-business information technology (IT)
governance addresses how to design and implement effective
organisations by creating flexible IT and information systems (IS)
structures and processes. IT Governance in a global context has to
cater for
intensive
competition, cultural diversity, and various
fluctuating economic conditions. A static model of IT Governance
and organisation cannot adequately address these issues.
The prime aim of IT Governance is to contribute to
business activity in terms of lower costs, satisfied customers and
better quality products or service provided by a company.
Governance assumes accountability, making improving the channels of
accountability an important feature of IT Governance,
especially
accounting for return on investment. Many problems need to be
addressed by the IT function: weak planning, rapid business and
environmental change, and management involvement are some. The
emergent process of IT Governance reveals that managers need to
understand that they are
neither
all-powerful nor powerless to
effect change. Rather, they are in partial control of emerging
processes that result in new organisational designs. They need to
consider the importance of global business management, cultural
diversity, ethics and advanced production and information
technologies as the boundaries between the Internet and customer
strategy continue to merge. Some fundamental re-directions in
e-business IT Governance strategy thinking are
considered
and a
framework for global e-business IT Governance and organisational
design as both a planned and an emergent process is proposed.
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Management strategies are
concerned
with reaching a
specific destination, and in particular with how to reach the
destination. Company strategies are unique and difficult to
differentiate from a specific company's values, goals and mission.
Organisations cannot expect to extrapolate or
borrow
a strategy
from another company. What works strategically for one company may
not have the same impact on another organisation. Similarly,
e-business IT Governance is affected by an organisation's unique
culture and working practices, and should reflect its own goals and
ambitions. The proposed framework is not a prescriptive IT
Governance package that can be replicated across all organisations
or even for all time in a particular organisation. Its purpose is
to enable decision-
makers
to take a holistic and alternative view
of IT Governance and to enable them to find their own appropriate
mechanisms for devising an IT Governance strategy that fits their
particular organisation. This approach is based on the increasing
literature on emergent organisations and its corresponding effect
on IS development and IT Governance (Pawson et al., 1995; Truex et
al., 1999; Patel, 1999). Some authors state that IS development in
IT Governance is possible without formal
methods
(Baskerville,
1992). The proposed framework for global e-business IT Governance
supposes that the problem is one of recognising and
accommodating
emergent activity rather than focusing purely on planned rational
governance.
The chapter is organised around the central
problem that addresses global e-business IT Governance as combined
planned governance with emergent needs. Whilst planning is a
vital
aspect of IT Governance, the pace of economic change nationally and
internationally quickly makes plans
outdated
. Business needs for IT
and IS tend to emerge as a result of organisational and economic
factors; thus e-business models, as discussed in the following
section, need to
encompass
emergent activity. The business
rationale for e-business requires a broader scope for IT
Governance, taking into account both IT and business issues. The
e-business IT Governance framework itself is built on radical
re-directions from traditional IT Governance, discussed in the
section on
radical
re-directions. The framework section details
activities that need to be continuously carried out to ensure plans
are relevant to business needs and account for emergent needs. A
critical aspect of e-business IT is the development of
organisational interfaces, which traditional IT Governance has not
had to deal with. These interfaces, for example between customer
and organisation or business partner and organisation, are vital
for the success of e-business IT Governance. The conclusion reached
is that global e-business IT Governance should be regarded both as
a systematic and organic approach to IT resource management.