Towards a framework for governance architecture management in cloud environments: A semantic perspective

This article introduces a model for cloud governance with a specific focus on its semantic aspects. It considers three dominant paradigms — the business–IT alignment paradigm, the governance paradigm, and the cloud paradigm. The model can be enhanced with specific tools to serve as a holistic framework for addressing governance of both traditional and cloud-based IT environments. The proposed consideration of semantic aspects within the model can enable a more feasible application of the model in complex architectural settings — both from the point of view of architecture assessment and architecture management.     

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。     

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.     

Defining business requirements quickly and accurately

A critical task in an enterprise IT architecture project is to identify and understand key business requirements to ensure that the planned IT systems will fully support and evolve with the business. This article illustrates a more effective approach: leveraging the combined power of value chain, which captures the static business view, and use cases, which animate the business model. In this way, enterprise architects can rapidly define the business's main elements and understand how key systems interact to support business activities.     

Status quo geschäftsprozessorientierter Architekturintegration

Today large companies often have to cope with complex and heterogeneous IT infrastructures. The main target of IT architects being responsible for those architectures is to align IT to business needs at the lowest costs possible. A recent approach to this issue is Enterprise Application Integration (EAI). Our study examines how EAI is used in large-scale companies and which effects it has on the organizational architecture of those companies. The results illustrate that EAI is a major component in complex IT infrastructures which has a significant influence on business processes. But the study also shows that there is a considerable gap between the importance of EAI in enterprise architecture and the way it is used in companies today. Eventually this article points out what has to be done to come closer to an internally sustainable enterprise architecture.     

It governance in the public sector: a conceptual model

Information technology governance (ITG) has been identified as an organizational ability of great importance for IT strategic alignment and the delivery of business though IT. However, the results and contribution of ITG are poorly understood. This work presents an explanatory model of the effects of IT governance mechanisms on IT and organizational performance of public organizations. To test the model, data was collected from a survey conducted in 146 Brazilian public organizations. Partial least squares analysis was applied to test the proposed model. The results indicate that (i) IT performance is positively correlated with organizational performance, (ii) relational mechanisms between IT and a business are determinant factors for the performance of IT, and also positively correlated with organizational performance, and (iii), decision structure and process maturity are not significantly correlated with IT performance.     

An it Architecture for Nimble Organizations: Managing Access from Cyberspace

In today's world of “co-opetition” among organizations, where one organization competes and cooperates simultaneously with business partners, all organizations must have IT architectures that are nimble and flexible. This article takes a look at one important aspect in achieving a flexible IT architecture: access management of information resources over the Web. It describes an access management architecture that can change as business does and recommends how best to implement this nimble architecture.     

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。     

An assimilation maturity model for IT governance and auditing

This study develops a conceptual model of organizational IT assimilation maturity based on constructs in the IS literature, qualitative data analysis of three exploratory case studies, and general morphological analysis (GMA). We inductively extract four dimensions of IT assimilation – business processes, information architecture, IT processes, and end-users – and characterize different maturity levels for each dimension. Applying Zwicky's GMA on the combinatorially large space of IT assimilation configurations, we prune the space to a more limited number of internally consistent and empirically feasible IT assimilation maturity profiles. We discuss how the model can support IT audit and governance activities.     

Effective information technology (IT) governance mechanisms: An IT outsourcing perspective

Effective IT governance will ensure alignment between IT and business goals. Organizations with ineffective IT governance will suffer due to poor performance of IT resources such as inaccurate information quality, inefficient operating costs, runaway IT project and even the demise of its IT department. This study seeks to examine empirically the individual IT governance mechanisms that influence the overall effectiveness of IT governance. Furthermore, this study examines the relationship of effective IT governance, the extent of IT outsourcing decisions within the organizations, and the level of IT Intensity in the organizations. We used structural equation modeling analysis to examine 110 responses from members of ISACA (Information Systems and Audit Control Association) Australia in which their organizations have outsourced their IT functions. Results suggest significant positive relationships between the overall level of effective IT governance and the following mechanisms: the involvement of senior management in IT, the existence of ethic or culture of compliance in IT, and corporate communication systems.     

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.     

面向服务的企业架构*

定义了面向服务的企业架构、业务过程和活动类型,分析了企业架构内涵的演化、概念框架和服务视角,并在传统企业建模、IT规划和企业架构的基础上提出了面向服务企业架构及其规划过程,为分析面向服务环境下企业的业务、IT及其一致性提供了公共的理解和交流基础,有助于企业实时监控IT架构运营状况,进而预测、评估和优化企业业务过程性能,实现企业间的业务过程协作建模与执行.     

Interoperable enterprise systems: Principles, concepts, and methods

Interoperable enterprise systems (be they supply chains, extended enterprises, or any form of virtual organizations) must be designed, controlled, and appraised from a holistic and systemic point of view. Systems interoperability is a key to enterprise integration, which recommends that the IT architecture and infrastructure be aligned with business process organization and control, themselves designed according to a strategic view expressed in an enterprise architecture. The paper discusses architectures and methods to build interoperable enterprise systems, advocating a mixed service and process orientation, to support synchronous and/or asynchronous operations, both at the business level (business events, business services, business processes) and at the application level (workflow, IT and Web services, application programs).     

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.     

Aligning Business and It: The Process-Driven Architecture Model

Due to the fact that the corporate IT function is tightly coupled to enterprise processes and the organization's information needs, today's IT investments and processes are driven by the same dynamics as the enterprise itself. This article describes a model of a four-layer process-driven architecture (PDA) that can be used as a framework for addressing the alignment of business and IT.     

Impact of IT Governance and IT Capability on Firm Performance

Based on resource-based and strategic choice theory, this research empirically validates that IT governance is an important antecedent of IT capability, which in turn results in improved firm performance. This article contributes to the IS literature by proposing a comprehensive measure of IT governance based on secondary data, and simultaneously examining the impact of IT governance and IT capability on firm performance.     

基于SOA的IT服务管理应用的集成

像其他组织一样,IT服务提供者通过服务管理应用软件对内部业务过程提供支持。随着时间的推移,业务过程会发生改变,而管理应用软件必须能够灵活地适应这种变化。文章描述了一种方法,这种方法使用面向服务的架构将管理应用软件集成起来,阐述了如何根据业务过程松散地集成管理应用软件。     

IT治理决策中业务应用需求的分析与应用

在深入剖析了业务应用需求的主要研究内容的基础上,以CSF思想为指导,提出一种业务应用需求中关注的企业核心流程需求的识别方法,给出一种确定重构业务流程的方法和理论,可以作为在实施IT治理中业务应用需求分析的参考。并在此基础上,将此方法应用于中海集团的IT治理决策中,得出中海集团的核心业务流程。     

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.