Selecting and Ranking IT Governance Practices for Electric Utilities

Although general literature and several frameworks suggest practices for IT Governance, there is still no consensus about which should be considered “best” or “essential”. It seems reasonable to assume that recommendations of specific practices depend on factors such as the target industry, company profile, culture, and IT organization preferences. The literature on the subject for the electric utility industry seems particularly scanty. We have taken a first step in filling this gap by performing a literature review and then discussing our preliminary findings with top level IT executives from an electric utility in Europe and another in South America. We came up with a list of 83 practices that can be used to address distinct dimensions of IT Governance (leadership, structure, process, social, and relational mechanisms) and with a shorter list of 14 key practices classified into Essential, Important, and Good that are deemed the most relevant for electrical utilities.

[1]  Mårten Simonsson,et al.  EARP WORKING PAPER MS 102 : IT GOVERNANCE MATURITY IN ELECTRIC UTILITIES-COBIT ASSESSMENTS OF ADMINISTRATIVE SYSTEMS AND OPERATION SUPPORT SYSTEMS , 2005 .

[2]  Amany R. Elbanna,et al.  From Control to Drift: The Dynamics of Corporate Information Infrastructures , 2001 .

[3]  Yajiong Xue,et al.  Information Technology Governance in Information Technology Investment Decision Processes: The Impact of Investment Characteristics, External Environment, and Internal Context , 2008, MIS Q..

[4]  Robert W. Zmud,et al.  Arrangements for Information Technology Governance: A Theory of Multiple Contingencies , 1999, MIS Q..

[5]  R. Peterson.  Crafting Information Technology Governance , 2004 .

[6]  W. V. Grembergen,et al.  Implementing Information Technology Governance: Models, Practices and Cases , 2007 .

[7]  Petter Gottschalk,et al.  E-Business Strategy, Sourcing and Governance , 2005 .

[8]  Ryan Peterson,et al.  Crafting Information Technology Governance , 2004, Inf. Syst. Manag..

[9]  T. Jick.  Mixing Qualitative and Quantitative Methods: Triangulation in Action. , 1979 .

[10]  K. Blois.  Business To Business Exchanges: A Rich Descriptive Apparatus Derived From Macneil’s and Menger’s Analyses , 2002 .

[11]  L. Diamond.  IT Governance : How Top Performers Manage IT Decision Rights for Superior Results , 2005 .

[12]  Pieter M. A. Ribbers,et al.  Information technology governance by design: investigating hybrid configurations and integration mechanisms , 2000, ICIS.

[13]  R. Yin.  Case Study Research: Design and Methods , 1984 .

[14]  Leon A. Kappelman,et al.  Early Warning Signs of it Project Failure: The Dominant Dozen , 2007 .

[15]  Jerry N. Luftman,et al.  An Update on Business-IT Alignment: "A Line" Has Been Drawn , 2007, MIS Q. Executive.

[16]  Joseph P. Cannon,et al.  Contracts, norms, and plural form governance , 2000 .

[17]  Thompson S. H. Teo,et al.  Critical success factors in the alignment of IS plans with business plans , 1999 .

[18]  John C. Henderson,et al.  Strategic Alignment: Leveraging Information Technology for Transforming Organizations , 1993, IBM Syst. J..

[19]  John M. Ward,et al.  'Mind the Gap': diagnosing the relationship between the IT organisation and the rest of the business , 1999, J. Strateg. Inf. Syst..

[20]  Sanjay Bose,et al.  Impact of service-oriented architecture on enterprise systems, organizational structures, and individuals , 2005, IBM Syst. J..

[21]  P. Weill,et al.  IT Governance , 2017 .

[22]  Pontus Johnson,et al.  Assessement of IT governance : A prioritization of cobit , 2006 .

[23]  Tally Hatzakis,et al.  A social capital approach to IT relationship management evaluation , 2004, 37th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 2004. Proceedings of the.