A Study Of Information System Governance

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

INTRODUCTION

IT governance has becoming such an interesting research topic to study. IT governance defines "the decision rights and accountability framework to encourage the desirable behaviour in the use of IT" (Van Grembergen 2004). Research has shown that organizations with proper IT governance will result in at least 20 percent higher returns on assets than organizations with weaker governance (Weill 2004). Furthermore, better governance of IT lead to improved IT outcomes (IT Governance Institute 2009).

Information system (IS) governance is a subset of IT Governance. IS governance formed from a convergence of several well-established areas concerned with data such as data quality management, data management systems, data security, and data administration (Begg and Caira, 2012). The major driver for this convergence was a need to co-ordinate the control and management of all aspects of data throughout an enterprise (Begg and Caira, 2012).

The role of IS governance is to provide the policies, processes and procedures necessary to ensure that the programme of work is effective. These must be clearly communicated to everyone involved. Governance covers the integrated management of the programme from its initial development, through production running to end-of-life close down. The governance structures must also be reviewed over the lifetime of the programme. This is to ensure that the governance is neither too little to allow effective control or so much that programme work is stifled.

The are compelling reasons in implementing IS governance, such as gaining control over data quality for regulatory reporting or ensuring operational systems acurately complete transactions. IS governance refers to the overall management of the availability, usability, integrity and security of the organisation. How the data is used by the organization in its decision making is the outcome of a IS governance system.

The aim of this study is to explore the awareness of and attitude to IS governance within government agencies. Also to discover how do they perceive data and IS governance. This study aim to seek and highlights any barriers that might restrict these government agencies from implementing IS governance.

PROBLEM STATEMENT

IS governance is defined as ‘the model the organisation will use to ensure optimal use and re-use of the data and enforcement of corporate policies". IS governance has becoming an important area for organisation to improve and maintain the quality of corporate data in order to achieve strategic business requirements (Otto and Boris, 2011). IS governance is about rules and policies set by the organisation for data assets. These rules and policies are then being enforces throughout the organization structure.

IS governance is a subset of IT Governance and currently widely an emerging area. Othman et.al (2011) stated that IT governance implementation in Malaysia is slightly low. Amongst the barriers identified are lacks of top management support, lack of communication, resistance to change, lack of formalization and lack of centralization.

Why these barriers exist? While IS governance is widely being practiced and IS governance frameworks claim to be adaptable and scalable (Begg and Caira, 2012), research has shown that there are still large amount of organisations that have not practiced them (Othman et.al, 2011). A survey on U.S companies reveal less than half had implemented any type of IT governance standard or framework (Winniford et al. 2009).

In earlier studies, there were common reasons for failure across many of the IS governance projects - weak sponsorship and/or management support, insufficient funding, inadequate user involvement and organisational politics (Watsons et.al, 2003). With few exceptions, the reasons for failure were organisational rather than technical (Watsons et.al, 2003). As with most IT projects, organizational issues are usually more daunting and critical to success than technical ones (Wixom et.al, 2001).

This study is undertaken to explore the level of awareness and maturity of the IS governance terms and practice in government agencies Chief Information Officer (CIO) especially at ministerial level. The CIO’s are chosen as because of their significant role as the accountable authority of the organization information assets. This study also will attempt to discover the extent of IS governance adoption within the CIO’s organisation and the issue of barriers and challenges surrounding them.

RESEARCH QUESTION

From the problem statement, a few research questions emerge:

What is the awareness level and maturity level of IS governance within government agencies Chief Information Officer?

What is the extent of adoption of existing IS governance framework within government agencies, focusing in ministerial level?

What are the issue of barriers and challenges to the adoption of IS governance in government agencies?

How does the acceptance of IT governance influence the implementation of IS governance initiatives?

RESEARCH OBJECTIVE

Based on the problem statement mention in above section, there are several objectives of the study determined. The objectives of study are as follows:

To explore and identify the level of awareness and maturity of the IS governance terms and practice government agencies Chief Information Officer (CIO) especially at ministerial level;

To study the adoption of IS governance framework amongst the government agencies; and

This study also will attempt to discover the extent of IS governance adoption within the CIO’s organisation and the issue of barriers and challenges surrounding them.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

Research findings will later on add to the knowledge and understanding of the IS governance acceptance and its application in the context amongst government agencies. This study should be significant in such a way that

Generate greater awareness among public organization on the importance of IS governance;

Allow the identification of acceptance and barriers in practicing IS governance; and

Provide knowledge that contributes to the adoption of IS governance framework.

SCOPE OF STUDY

The study will involve all the ministries CIO’s and IT Manager, where as both are accountable for information assets of the organizations.

THEORITICAL FRAMEWORK OF THE STUDY

The objective of the study is to examine the extent of adoption of IS governance framework and within government agencies and secondly is to see how factors such as corporate governance and IT governance role in assuring accountability of information assets.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The methodology of this study based on quantitative approach which consists of three (3) phases:

Observation and Library Research

The library study will be done to do study on frameworks that have been published. This research on frameworks will analyze the similar frameworks that can be adopted or can be modified to suit the requirement for government agencies. Library research will consist of library and internet research. This research will covers technical white paper, journal, published standard or guideline and other research paper that have similar objective or related. This library research will not only be done at university library but also other library that can give information on this study. The objective of this exercise is to get information that can be a reference in guideline development. This activity also covers industrial best practice to be adopted in the guideline.

Data Collection

Data Collection is done by handling the questionnaire interview session, information and data is gathered from the books, websites and library. The candidates selected for the interview are those who are accountable for information assets in government agencies that is the CIO’s and IT Manager.

Data Analysis

During data analysis phase, all data and information gathered through the survey, interviews, books and documents review are analyzed. The information on actual implementation process is carefully study and compared with the proposed implementation plan in the proposed study. Other than that, the data and information are also being study and evaluated based on the measurement index choose in the earlier phase. The analysis is based on the data that is revealed by the target population and data that is derived from the documents.

LITERATURE REVIEW

IT Governance

Organisational investments in IT have become increasingly large as the organisations become more information intensive. It is imperative that these investments be used effectively and efficiently. To ensure this, organisations must put IT governance structures and processes in place (Korac, Kakabadse, 2001).

The scope of IT governance activities ranges from strategic to operational. It is critical that there is alignment between the business and the IT strategies (Henderson and Navakaratnam, 1993). On the other hand, IT governance must also address operational issues, such as what end user data access tools to support and what data definitions to use. The scope of IT governance activities requires that there is broad participation in performing them.

IT governance framework proposed by Weill and Ross, 2004b includes five major decision domains, IT principles; IT architecture; IT infrastructure; business application needs; and IT investment and prioritization, which has its own set of core issues.

IS governance

IS governance refers to the overall management of the availability, usability, integrity and security of the data employed in an organisations. How the data is used by the organization in its decision making is the outcome of a IS governance system.

With its guidelines established by corporate leaders and IT and communicated across the organization, the IS governance oversight process prioritizes investments, allocates resources to projects within the data warehouse environment and monitors project results to ensure enterprise data is properly valued and used in alignment with corporate objectives.

More specifically, IS governance includes determinations of who can take what actions with what information, when the actions can be taken, and how those actions will be accomplished.

IS governance Framework

There are several published frameworks of IS governance that offer a good platform on which to establish when planning a IS governance programme (Dyché 2007).

Weber et al. (2009) proposes a IS governance model made up of roles (executive sponsor, chief steward, business data steward, and technical data steward), decision areas (or tasks) and assignment of responsibilities. The components of the model are drawn together into a responsibility assignment matrix. Weber et al. (2009) suggest data quality roles and their type of interaction with data quality management (DQM) activities and also contingency factors taken from IT governance influence the design of the IS governance model in achieving successful data quality management.

Khatri & Brown (2010) propose a IS governance framework that is an adaptation of a previous published IT governance framework by Weill & Ross (2004). This approach promotes the idea that the control and management of data assets (IS governance) should be closely aligned to the control and management of IT assets (IT governance). The IS governance framework uses five interrelated data decision domains: data principles, data quality, metadata, data access and data lifecycle. The purpose of each domain in exploring data-related matters is established along with identifying ‘the locus of accountability for decision-making’ in each domain; in other words the key decision makers in each domain. The paper concludes that all data-related decisions that establish the IS governance for an organisation must be achieved in close association with IT-related decisions and IT governance.

CONCLUSION

IT governance has becoming an important area in assuring proper alignment between the business and the IT strategies. One of IT governance element is IS governance. This proposal intends to seek IS governance adoption within government agencies. This study also intends to identify the extent of awareness of CIO’s and IT Manager of IS governance.

The study also aims to identify barriers and challenges in adopting IS governance framework. It is hoped that the output of study will be beneficial to all parties concerned while at the same time contribute to the knowledge enhancement.