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A recent publication in the Journal of Information Systems illustrated both the present need for IT governance research to be responsive to the challenges facing organisations, as well as the consequences of not having an adequate theoretical understanding of the concept of IT governance itself. By holding out what are essentially management control frameworks (such as the Control Objectives for Information and related Technology - COBIT) as a proxy for IT governance, the authors subscribed to a number of poorly supported assumptions about the form and nature of IT governance. This presentation will present a reply paper that will challenge some of these assumptions and show the historical context behind them. By using a case study, it will then demonstrate that IT governance is a rich and dynamic social construct, and that elements of social theory offer the prospect of developing a theoretical framework for IT governance, capable of supporting and strengthening future research.
Gerard Ilott is a Lecturer in Accounting at the Rockhampton campus of CQUniversity. He is currently writing his PhD on the need for a greater theoretical awareness of what IT governance really is.
15 November 2011