Promises and successful practice in IT governance: a survey of Australian senior IT managers

In a global, digital economy, companies increasingly depend on IT for timely information sharing,effective operational control, rapid innovation, speed to market, and customer satisfaction. On theother hand, recent global financial crisis and economic recessions encourage trends for increasedmanagerial scrutiny to reduce IT spending and to increase business value of IT. Globally, concepts ofIT governance (ITG) have proliferated as a solution for improving IT management under businessuncertainty and rapid technological change. However, empirical research on organisational ITGpractice still is lacking and urgently required. This paper, therefore, presents survey results on ITGpractice from a perspective of senior IT managers in Australian private-sector organisations. Thesurvey examines ITG practices, IT/business strategic alignment, ITG maturity level, IT organisation,and the relationship between IT organisation and business. Archival analysis of company documentsis also performed to verify survey responses and gain additional insights. Despite different ITGframeworks being implemented across the companies, the results show the central importance ofshared clear understanding of the strategic role of ITG by all levels of employees across theenterprise. The paper also discusses research limitations and future research directions