IT Governance in a Network Context: Literature Review and Agenda for Research

As a reaction to increased competition and higher customer expectations, organizations engage in collaborative networks; the key drivers for this ongoing trend are information and communication technologies. Today, collaborative networks are crucial for the entire network endeavor and rely heavily on IT resources. While the use and management of inter-organizational systems have already been widely studied from a firm’s perspective, there is little research that examines IT-related governance from a network point of view. In this paper, we present a systematic literature review in the field of IT governance in a network context. The review covers 28 publications. Building upon this, we identify four promising fields for future research: networks at the meta-level and linkages among levels, theories for IT governance in networks, the role of relational mechanisms, and (complex) contingency analysis. Finally, we suggest a more balanced use of methods.

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