Coordination as a Process for Federated IS Governance

Federated information systems (IS) governance structures are becoming more prevalent as multi-unit organizations seek to balance the competing demands of autonomy for business units to respond to local needs and synergies gained from common infrastructures and boundary spanning software systems. Coordination of the development, use, support and management of information technology is critical to successful governance. Prior coordination research has focused primarily on the efficacy of particular mechanisms in creating effective lateral relationships. To achieve the full benefits of federated IS governance, coordination is conceptualized as a process involving a portfolio of coordination mechanisms, employed over time, to achieve a collaborative enterprise outcome. This dissertation adopts the critical realist perspective in a longitudinal case study of a large, public institution to inductively generate process theory of how coordination occurs in a federated IS structure