企业信息化建设成功之路——IT治理

IT治理是以企业战略为导向,以IT业务过程和IT服务的改进为手段,合理利用IT资源,规避IT风险的动态改进过程。本文从战略管理的角度分析企业信息化建设,认为IT实施与战略目标的背离是其失败的主要原因,并以COBIT模型为例论述了IT治理的流程。     

IT Governance of Dutch Municipalities and Digital Information Management

Digitalization of information management has changed the archives sector in a short period of time and has significant implications for information processes within governmental organizations. In this article, the governance of such organizations is looked at from a business information technology (IT) alignment driven perspective, based on a case study conducted within two Dutch municipalities. The study shows that mature IT governance can have positive effects on digital document information management, because it leads to “desirable behavior in the use of IT.” Comparing the two municipalities, several findings become apparent. These concern effective management of input, for example through successful cooperation, and effective management of output of IT, for example by providing the needed digital services to citizens. Findings also are presented regarding the conjoint development of strategies by business and IT, mainly concerning the involvement of IT in decision making. Finally, findings surface concerning the positioning of decision-making authority, and whether that is clear to the personnel.     

Countering the “dam effect”: the case for architecture and governance in developing country health information systems

ABSTRACT

This paper presents a case for enterprise architecture (EA) and IT governance for driving techno-organizational change and coordination of health information systems (HISs) in developing countries. We support our claim with analyses of a large-scale electronic HIS in Ethiopia by tracing the logic of actors’ decisions and conduct within and beyond the organizational boundaries of the Ethiopian Federal Ministry of Health to understand how the information system innovation process is designed, legitimized and imposed by internal and external organizational forces. In the absence of formalized institutional arrangements throughout the HIS development and implementation, an international development agency fills a key gap forming an obligatory passage point which we conceptualize as “the dam effect.” Drawing on actor-network theory, we identify three important implications of EA and IT governance: (1) to help achieve an alignment of interests within the enterprise; (2) to serve as a tool for protecting the interests of the enterprise in external negotiations; and (3) to serve as a pragmatic approach to carrying out techno-organizational change.     

Taking value-networks to the cloud services: security services, semantics and service level agreements

Cloud services have become an emerging solution for organizations striving to address today’s need for agility, but little research has addressed transitioning multiple, collaborating organizations to what can be referred to as a “value-network cloud.” We know that organizations adopting cloud services to execute business processes must concomitantly reconfigure their security solutions for their integrated intra- and inter-organizational collaborations. We address the question, “What is needed to make it possible for an entire value-network to take secure, collaborative business process executions to the cloud?” Future value-network cloud solutions will require completely new security approaches that will leverage contracted brokering solutions operating as part of the cloud solution. We view value-network cloud security service provisioning as a bundle decision characterized by a mix of communication patterns relevant to intra- and inter-enterprise collaboration. We propose a cloud service broker model—using semantics and SLA based middleware—to serve as a trusted interface between the enterprise, cloud service providers and other organizations collaborating in a value-network. The approach enables IT governance for value-network cloud services. The architectural requirements adapt design principles for infrastructure management tailored from approaches to how business cartels historically conducted secure business dealings.     

Achieving IT‐based synergies through regulation‐oriented and consensus‐oriented IT governance capabilities

This study aims at exploring the IT governance capabilities that enable organizations to achieve IT‐based synergies. Following existing work on the contextualization of theories and drawing on the resource‐based view of the firm (RBV), we develop an RBV of IT‐based synergies in two steps. First, we adopt existing context‐specific constructs and relationships from prior work on IT governance capabilities, IT relatedness, and synergies to develop a preliminary contextualization of the RBV. Second, to further refine our theoretical framework, we conduct an exploratory field study that includes interviews with 26 CIOs and other IT executives from 21 multibusiness firms. Our findings suggest that IT governance capabilities lead to IT‐based synergies through IT relatedness and business process relatedness. We found regulation‐oriented IT governance capabilities (IT roles and IT processes) to increase IT relatedness, while consensus‐oriented IT governance capabilities (IT groups and relational capabilities) had a positive effect on business process relatedness. Our results suggest that, in isolation, IT and business process relatedness lead to IT cost synergies, while collectively enabling IT‐induced business synergies. Our study is among the first to treat IT relatedness as an endogenous construct and to explicitly integrate business process relatedness into the IT governance domain. Our context‐specific decomposition of IT governance capabilities helps to better explain their links to IT and business process relatedness. These findings contribute to a better understanding of the tension between IT‐based synergies and business‐IT alignment. Decision‐makers are guided in developing IT governance capabilities to achieve IT‐based synergies.     

企业IT治理架构构建①

针对当前企业信息化过程中所存在的问题,系统论述了企业管理和IT治理的关系,并着重分析了企业IT治理的模式,提出了企业IT治理的目标和架构。并在此基础上提出了企业IT治理架构构建的方法。     

高职IT专业“双肩挑”教师教学能力提升的实践探索

“双肩挑”教师不但肩负着“教书育人”的重大责任,同时更加具体地担负着“管理育人、服务育人”的特殊使命。文章分析了“双肩挑”教师教学现状及存在的问题,进而提出了提升高职IT专业“双肩挑”教师教学能力的途径与方法     

Assessing the strategic value of Information Technology: An analysis on the insurance sector

Even though companies today are well aware of the pitfalls in making IT investments and that many IT applications have become commodities, IT projects still fail. Obviously IT has a strategic value to firms but they have not determined how IT management capabilities and IT governance schemes explain commonalities and differences in their use of IT.     

电子政务的IT治理初探

IT治理，作为一种全新的管理理念，有助于防范各种导致电子政务失败和低效化的风险。本文运用COBIT模型，对电子政务中存在的风险进行IT治理，并指出建立IT治理机制势在必行。     

Knowledge sharing using IT service management tools: conflicting discourses and incompatible practices

ICT applications that include functionality for knowledge sharing are routinely used by IT service providers even though their implementation is known to be problematic and the reasons for such problems not well understood. To shed light on the issue, we collected data at two organisations where managers had provided IT service support workers with IT service management (ITSM) tools incorporating functionality for knowledge sharing. Using critical discourse analysis and rhetorical analysis techniques, we contrasted primary data representative of IT service support practice with other primary and publicly available secondary data reflecting the prevailing discourse of IT service managers. Through this analysis, we identify an apparent dissonance between ITSM managerial and worker discourses that reflect opposing epistemologies. Managers are optimistic about the benefits of ICT‐based knowledge sharing, whereas the practice of workers is revealed to privilege self‐reliance and interpersonal knowledge sharing. By taking a dual, management–worker, perspective, we provide fresh insight into why ICT‐based knowledge sharing is problematic. As a theoretical contribution, we propose that dysfunctional intra‐organisational conflict can arise where incompatible management and worker practices become institutionalised through the simultaneous diffusion of conflicting discourses.     

IT governance for enterprise resource planning supported by the DeLone–McLean model of information systems success

I investigated the role of IT governance in driving the success of ERP projects. The tool for assessing ERP value was a comprehensive, multivariate and validated model adapted from the widely used Delone and McLean model of IS success. This showed that ERP investments were more effective in organizations having an IT governance domain consisting of proactive strategic guidance and participatory team building. Large enterprises, however, under-performed compared to SMEs and needed specific performance drivers, such as top management commitment to become effective.     

In search of Europe's information technology leaders: review of methods and empirical evidence

Abstract. Information technology (IT) leaders — companies that successfully exploit IT to achieve business results — generate immense interest among practitioners and academics. From a practitioner's perspective, IT leaders provide benchmarks of leading IT management practices which others may emulate to achieve success. From an academic perspective, IT leaders provide the 'data' for the creation of frameworks and theories of IT management. While US IT leaders are regularly assessed by academics, trade magazines, consultants and benchmarking firms, there has been no Europe-wide assessment of IT leadership. This neglect is detrimental to European IT practitioners and academics who may discover that American IT management practices are not transferrable in the European context. In this article, we analyse the construct, context and statistical validity of six methods for identifying European IT leaders. Based on this analysis, two methods (expert ratings and citation counts) were used to generate a preliminary list of European IT leaders and laggards. While individual experts were reticent about volunteering their ratings, their collective view appears to generate a worthwhile list with high construct validity. Citation counts represent a more accessible process for list generation, with high statistical validity. However, an attempt to correlate expert ratings with a list based on citation counts confirms that the latter has questionable construct validity.     

Knowledge transfer in IT offshoring relationships: the roles of social capital,efficacy and outcome expectations

Information technology (IT) development in global organisations relies heavily on the transfer of tacit and complex knowledge from onshore units to offshore subsidiaries. A central concern of such organisations is the development of social capital, which is known to facilitate the smooth transfer of knowledge. However, only a few studies in IS research have explicitly examined the role of social capital for knowledge transfer in an IT offshoring context. In this paper, we argue that such knowledge transfer mechanisms can be understood better by considering social capital in concert with knowledge senders' efficacy and outcome expectations, two of the potentially key motivational drivers of knowledge transfer. We develop our arguments through a qualitative case study of a large German multinational company. German IT developers in this firm provided in‐depth accounts of their experience with offshore colleagues in an Indian captive subsidiary unit. Drawing on our analysis, we develop a model that depicts the influence of social capital, efficacy and outcome expectations on onshore IT developers' ability and willingness to transfer knowledge to offshore colleagues. Through the model, we also explain how social capital, efficacy and outcome expectations are interrelated and generate three interlocked, self‐reinforcing circles of knowledge transfer success in IT offshoring relationships.     

The Effect of IT Governance Maturity on IT Governance Performance

There are several best practice based frameworks that detail effective arrangements for the internal structure of an IT organization. Although it is reasonable that there is a correlation between the quality of the internal structure of an IT organization – labeled IT governance maturity, and the external impact of the same IT organization on the business – labeled IT governance performance, this has not been validated. The results, based on 35 case studies, confirm the hypotheses of a positive correlation between IT governance maturity and IT governance performance. Among IT processes described in 34 references, the internal structure of the IT organization, clearly defined organizational structures and relationships, mature quality management, and cost allocation show the strongest positive correlation to IT governance performance. The maturity of project management and service level management, as well as performance and capacity management, show almost no correlation to IT governance performance. The findings can be used to improve current frameworks for IT governance.     

Justifications,Strategies, and Critical Success Factors in Successful ITIL Implementations in U.S. and Australian Companies: An Exploratory Study

Abstract

A growing number of organizations are implementing the ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library) “best practice” framework in an attempt to improve their IT service management processes. However, not all ITIL implementations are successful and some companies have been disappointed with the outcomes. This exploratory research reports on four case studies of “successful” implementations of IT service management using the process-based ITIL V2 framework. Two companies are located in the U.S. and two in Australia. The cases demonstrate a mix of implementation justifications and strategies. Critical success factors (CSFs) suggested in the literature are compared against those attributed to these successful ITIL implementations. Some CSFs, including executive management support, interdepartmental communication and collaboration, use of consultants, training and careful software selection are confirmed. Three new CSFs are identified: creating an ITIL-friendly culture, process as a priority, and customer-focused metrics. Practitioner guidelines, to assist IT managers, who are contemplating adopting ITIL for process improvement and organisational transformation, are also provided together with some challenges encountered and their associated resolutions.     

Socio-technical IS design science research: developing design theory for IS integration management

Design science research is an essential part of IS research since the field should not only try to understand how the world is, but also how to change it. We argue that the aim of IS design science research should be to develop practical knowledge not only for the design of novel information technology (IT), but also for IS governance and management. Whereas at least some methodological support exists for researchers engaged in IT-centric design science research, limited support is available for researchers who want to develop design knowledge and theory for IS governance and management. To overcome this shortcoming, we suggest a socio-technical IS design science research approach. The approach has four main activities: (1) identifying problem situations and desired outcomes, (2) reviewing extant theories, knowledge and data, (3) proposing/refining design theory and knowledge, and (4) testing design theory and knowledge. The applicability and usefulness of the proposed approach is shown by means of a design science research project concerning IS integration management in the context of mergers and acquisitions.     

IT一体化运维管控技术与管理研究

在分析了当前电力行业中IT运维操作面临的内部和外部安全风险与需求的基础上,以IT运维安全审计系统、动态口令认证系统、防火墙等运维安全系统为研究对象,对IT运维安全的技术手段与管理手段进行探讨,并提出相应的技术方案和安全管理要求,对内部人员和第三方人员实现一体化运维管控。经实践表明,该技术方案和管理要求是可行有效的,既满足IT运维审计的实际需要,又符合IT内控管理中的合规性要求。     

基于平衡计分卡的IT治理模型研究

企业在实施IT治理过程中,对于项目的评价、开发、实施以及维护,需要一种多指标的方法来进行目标分解。平衡记分卡可以帮助企业来分解目标,同时根据对于目标的绩效考察来驱动战略。首先介绍IT治理的概念、模型以及IT平衡记分卡的四个维度,接着提出了一个Cobit与IT平衡计分卡相结合的瀑布模型,解决了IT治理中的绩效评价问题,使得IT治理过程更加完善和成熟。     

Investigating IT Governance through the Viable System Model

This paper investigates IT governance through the Viable System Model (VSM). We make a theoretical contribution by discussing why IT governance can continue to achieve its purpose of creating and preserving IT business value. Additionally, we demonstrate how the VSM can be used as a lens to describe and diagnose IT governance from a practical perspective, offering insights in how complexity can be unfolded and how complexity engineering takes place to handle changing complexity.