Global IT and IT-enabled services

We report on a study of high performing IT professionals in a global IT services company, whose exceptional performance in a highly demanding work environment raises the question of how they cope with their occupational demands. While literature has focused primarily on technology‐induced stressors and associated coping behaviours of IT users, our study examines distinctive coping behaviours of IT professionals in response to diverse occupational demands. We combine qualitative interviews and heart rate variability data from an exemplar sample of 15 high performing IT professionals to provide insights into their psychological and physiological strain levels respectively. Our participants exhibit four strain levels, each related to a distinctive combination of coping behaviours, which we abductively theorise as coping portfolios. We find that high performing IT professionals with both a low psychological and physiological strain level apply a broad and varied portfolio of coping behaviours in response to diverse occupational demands. We contribute to IS research on IT professionals by studying the coping behaviours of an exemplar sample of high performing IT professionals in a leading IT firm. Theoretically, we complement the established concepts of coping flexibility and coping repertoires by introducing the notion of coping portfolios.

At IBM, we recognize that our processes are our business. This is especially true in the area of IT Delivery where we have long been focused on the management and reuse of process assets. The current economic climate and advances in technology are rapidly driving IT Delivery to a truly global model. This transition greatly expands the scope of the process assets which need to be managed at a global level to include even the lowest level processes for service delivery. Customers, many of whom are also global, expect consistent quality and reasonable cost, regardless of from where services are delivered. The global management and reuse of IT Delivery process assets at all levels is no longer a desired objective but rather a business imperative. In this paper, we describe a system we are developing to manage, govern, and evolve process assets on a global scale by leveraging expertise of the entire IT Delivery community. We describe the history of the effort, the business drivers, the challenges and solutions we have devised, as well as future work.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the importance of Information Technology (IT) Governance models for public organizations and presenting an IT Governance model that can be adopted by both practitioners and researchers. A review of the literature in IT Governance has been initiated to shape the intended theoretical background of this study. The systematic literature review formalizes a richer context for the IT Governance concept. An empirical survey, using a questionnaire based on COBIT 4.1 maturity model used to investigate IT Governance practice in multiple case studies from Kingdom of Bahrain. This method enabled the researcher to gain insights to evaluate IT Governance practices. The results of this research will enable public sector organizations to adopt an IT Governance model in a simple and dynamic manner. The model provides a basic structure of a concept; for instance, this allows organizations to gain a better perspective on IT Governance processes and provides a clear focus for decision-making attention. IT Governance model also forms as a basis for further research in IT Governance adoption models and bridges the gap between conceptual frameworks, real life and functioning governance.

Information technology (IT) systems are becoming increasingly indispensable for organisations in their daily operations. Organisations therefore invest considerable capital in IT assets to support the IT needs of employees and other stakeholders. As the contemporary global business environment becomes increasingly reliant on IT, the need for IT to be governed effectively and efficiently grows. Boards play a critical role in the governance of organisations, yet despite the continued call for improved IT governance, there has been little research into how boards actually govern IT. Current research indicates boards appear to struggle to understand the state of IT within their companies and/or they lack appropriate IT skills in discussing IT issues. This study therefore assesses IT competences of boards using a model developed from a review of IT competence frameworks in three domains, namely IT organisations/associations, professional accounting associations and academic research. The model is then tested, using Malaysia as a case study to evaluate the level of Board IT competence. Malaysia was chosen in light of the attention drawn to corporate governance in the 9th Malaysia Plan report. A survey instrument extracted from the competences model lists 33 current critical IT issues facing boards. It then asked chief information officers (CIOs) of companies, to evaluate the importance of each issue and the level of competence their board has to deal with them. The results appear to show that there is a difference in the ranking of importance of issues and the level of IT competence boards currently hold based on what CIOs consider appropriate within a company. The findings will contribute to the research base on board IT competences from a Malaysian perspective thus highlighting areas for further improvement. If successful, the model can then be used to evaluate the state of IT governance in other international domains

Past research in information technology (IT) governance has shown that strong IT governance results in improved business performance. Despite widespread acceptance that IT governance is important, there are limited studies focusing on IT practitioners in IT governance initiatives. This study aims to examine the extent of commitment, awareness, perceived importance and competency in influencing IT practitioners’ participation in IT governance initiatives. Data analysis using Partial Least Squares reveals that awareness, perceived importance and competency have positive influence on participation in IT governance. However, commitment is not a significant predictor of participation in IT governance. The practitioner-centric approach taken by this study adds knowledge to the existing IT governance literature from organisational perspective. The findings from this study help IT management identify focus areas in increasing to maximise participation of IT practitioners in IT governance initiatives.

This study provides additional evidence on information technology (IT) governance and its relationship to firm performance in emerging markets. It aims primarily to determine the level of IT governance in Saudi Arabian companies; it also aims at examining the impact of IT governance on the firm performance. The study target sample is 131 companies taken from 20 sectors of the Saudi financial market; during the year 2017. The researchers have used the IT-related backgrounds of the members of the board of directors as an indicator of IT governance. The researchers have also used another group of corporate governance indicators in addition to a set of control variables. The performance of the companies has been referred to as the operational performance which is represented as Return on Assets (ROA) and the financial performance as the Return on Equity (ROE). The descriptive results have been shocking. The study has shown a sharp decline in IT governance in Saudi companies; only 15% of companies have members of the board of directors with IT-related backgrounds, and the IT governance is not adopted or used in many important sectors. However, the regression analysis shows that there is a positive impact on IT governance only on the operational performance of Saudi companies. The results of this study provide a significant indicator of IT governance in Saudi companies. These results can be also used to develop the corporate governance code to focus more on IT governance.

The IT services industry has been undergoing a significant transformation over the last decade primarily driven by the global delivery model - services are provided from delivery centers across the globe based on skill and cost. While extremely effective a key challenge is being able to harness distributed knowledge, especially to drive operational and business process optimizations and a superior client experience. The knowledge about service requirements, client experience and delivery quality is in collective possession of different communities, such as clients, service designers and delivery teams. Current practices to discovering this distributed and unstructured knowledge are semi-automated, and as such they fail to scale and provide accurate insights on demand. Enterprise crowdsourcing provides a mechanism to harness the tacit knowledge from a large group of network-connected humans. In this paper we describe a novel approach to improving operational excellence, with focus on compliance posture, using enterprise crowdsourcing. We demonstrate how enterprise crowdsourcing accelerated deployment of a novel identity access management capability in a global IT service delivery center, reducing the time to discover the required knowledge by 80%. We discuss how the uncovered knowledge networks can be engaged for various on-going operational activities as well as large-scale business transformation initiatives.

Purpose This paper aims to reveal the potential challenges and opportunities for information technology (IT) governance in higher education institutions (HEIs). Furthermore, the authors extend what the identified determinants mean for Saudi universities. Design/methodology/approach This study pursued a systematic literature review applying the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses strategy protocol. Findings IT governance is both beneficial and challenging to integrate into the higher education setting. This is because most IT Governance frameworks are created and implemented in a traditional organizational setting, which differs from the overall culture of HEIs. As for the context of Saudi Arabia, findings depict a hopeful picture for the future of IT Governance, as HEI stakeholders are primarily aware of IT Governance policies, but Saudi HEIs are yet to work toward this goal systematically. Research limitations/implications Apart from extending the current literature on IT governance, this paper adds the educational perspective and the Saudi context, which is found to be limited in the existing literature. The findings could be used to benchmark the IT Governance scenario in other countries, wherein this study could support the roadmap of effective IT governance adoption in HEIs in various nations. Originality/value This study could support improving the institutional operational performance of HEIs in Saudi Arabia, particularly in terms of electronic monitoring systems, effective monitoring of processing systems, prevention of fraud and reducing the manipulation and wasting of funds. The insights from this study could be beneficial to government policymakers, higher education managers, researchers and academics.

IT Governance is a branch of the corporate governance system focused on information technology (IT) as well as performance and risk management. IT Governance is defined as the processes that ensure the effective and efficient use of IT in enabling an organization to achieve its goal. There are many different frameworks that can be used for managing the delivery of cost-effective IT services. IT managing the delivery of cost-effective IT services does not always give the advantage to the company. There are times when the IT managing the delivery of cost-effective IT services does not provide any benefit, it can cause IT Productivity Paradox. IT Productivity Paradox can be prevented, one is to analyze the processes undertaken with IT. From this analysis we will get the significance of the relationship processes with the IT Goal. The significance will be seen which one significant process and which one are not significant to the IT Goal. If the IT process there are not significant to the IT Goal, the process does not need to be repaired because it has no effect on IT Goal. Existing IT governance frameworks are COBIT, ITIL, ISO 20000, 17799/27001, Six Sigma, etc. The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), initially developed in the UK by the Office of Government Commerce (OGC), is gaining traction in the global IT community as a framework for IT governance. ISO 20000-focusing upon IT service management. ISO 17799 / ISO 27001 - focusing upon information. Six Sigma-focusing upon operational performance and defect identification. COBIT - framework for information IT management risks. Control Objectives for Information and related Technology (COBIT) provides good practices across a domain and process framework and presents activities in a manageable and logical structure. COBIT’s good practices represent the consensus of experts. They are strongly focused more on control, less on execution. These practices will help optimise IT-enabled investments, ensure service delivery and provide a measure against which to judge when things do go wrong. This research is intend to find out whether Cobit mapping Business Goal to IT Goal appropriate with case study. The result The results using SEM approach shows that the mapping of COBIT is not significant in the case studies of academic administration.

This paper aims to examine the impact of both information technology governance (ITG) and data governance on information technology (IT) performance in the telecommunication industry. A questionnaire of 308 managers was collected from all telecommunication companies that are working in Egypt. Data were analyzed using smart partial least squares (PLS). The results showed that all the hypotheses of the study had been accepted. IT and data governance have a significant impact on both financial and non-financial performance. However, each of them has a different effect on the IT performance dimensions. The financial performance of IT department had been affected by IT governance more than data governance. Also, innovation and flexibility were the most affected by IT governance. On the other hand, data governance affected business processes and ethical compliance more than IT governance. The current study filled the gap on the literature in two ways. First, studying both IT governance and data governance as a critical factors affects financial and non-financial performance. Second, studying IT governance and data governance has become more important, especially in the telecommunication industry as it is a big challenge now to secure the data of the companies.

In response to the international trend, in recent years companieshave officially adopted the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs) and need to perform upgrade or adjustment to their Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systemsfor the IFRS conversion. Information technology (IT) governance in an ERP system environment will become akey that cannot be ignored by the management. To investigate the impact of implementing IT governance in an ERP environment on the effectiveness of ERP implementation and IFRS conversion The findings are as follows: Effective IT governance in a company can improve the project performance of ERP implementation; The improvement of the information quality and system qualityofan ERP system candemonstrate the effectiveness of the IFRS conversion through the ERP system; The project performance of ERP implementation can improve the information quality and system quality of the ERP system as well as the effectiveness of the IFRS implementation.

Information technology governance emerged in the early 1990s as a result of the description of the relationship between information technology and business strategy, and information technology governance correlate with management and information systems. This relationship is conducive to the development of integrated business planning, development and the definition of responsibilities. The results of the Garthner research show that large organizations invest more than half of their capital in the current information and communication technology. It is important to ensure the success of the business organization because of the significant impact on the performance and well-being of the organization, in other words, access to good management. This is the most important information system in the organization. It is important to look at the role played by these systems in providing the beneficiaries of the required information, especially the human resource. The core HRIS which proves the success of the organization's operations, is based on a strong infrastructure of hardware, software, communications, networks, and information technology, knowledge and experience in the management of data and knowledge The research seeks to study the relationship between the information technology governance and the infrastructure of the information systems, and the results of the agreed compatibility and impact in order to improve the performance of the information system and technology and control of participation in the technology and division of labor. The management of the information technology is not dependent on the successful adoption of the governance of the technology (planning and adoption of strategies. In order to achieve the research objectives and answer the research questions, the hypothesis of the research was tested using statistical methods that were analyzed by correlation and variance analysis as well as description of the research variables. The research sample included (62) members of the University of Mosul, representing the employees of a number of colleges university research society. The research came out with a number of conclusions in light of which the research presented a number of recommendations. .

International business decisions to be taken by executive managers of multinational firms are becoming more challenging due to uncertainties in business environment which is due to fast changing and unpredictable domestic, foreign, and global environment for long term sustainability. Even though firms are cautious and take precautions while taking decisions on international investment for production and marketing, their sustainability for a long time in a given business is shaking due to continuous changes in domestic, foreign, and global business environment. This is mainly due to variations in economic conditions, political scenarios, socio-cultural environment, technological breakthroughs, legal aspects and human behavioural effects on opportunities and challenges on the international business performance of multinational firms. In this paper, we have studied in brief, the various domestic, foreign, and global environmental issues which affects the multinational firm’s business decisions related to international investments and marketing. The paper also discusses the impact of the domestic environment, foreign environment, and global environment on economical, political, technological, legal, and cultural issues on investment and expansion decisions of multinational corporations in general.

In this chapter we consider the educational needs of the globally diverse information technology (IT) sector and a curriculum that has been developed in order to respond to them. We begin by discussing two human resource (HR) gaps that are affecting the preparation of tomorrow’s IT workforce. The first gap is a participation gap, which is related, in part, to the under representation in recruitment and retention of students with particular demographic profiles in information systems and technology (IS&T) education. The second gap is a knowledge gap, which is related to the globalization of the IT field and the challenges of developing compatible curriculum and pedagogical practices that will prepare students for careers in such a field. We argue that diversity is a lens that can be used to both understand these HR gaps and to develop curricular responses to them. We do this by considering, as a case study, a course developed and taught in the College of Information Sciences and Technology at Pennsylvania State University that is intended to address these gaps. This course—Human Diversity in the Global Information Economy—is offered to exemplify a way of addressing the diversity dimension of the IT skill set.

Enterprise systems design, implementation, and integration are focal points for business and information technology. Businesses must change processes, environments, and technologies as organizations strive to become more integrated and break down traditional silos of information systems and responsibility. These challenges require a new type of technical professional: one with the training and perspective of an enterprise architect with general technical expertise as well as business strategy and planning skills. Some college and university programs have risen to this challenge in recent years, and the joint ACM/Association for Information Systems Task Force developed the MSIS curriculum model to establish the fundamentals of enterprise information systems in response to the increasing demand for university-trained graduates in an information economy (Gorgone, Gray, & Feinstein, 2000). Recently, the Association for Open Group Enterprise Architects called for industry and academia to work together to craft new enterprise systems curricula that are relevant to today’s global business environment and developed from the perspective of an enterprise architect. Today’s globally competitive environment requires technical professionals to move beyond technical expertise and contribute to the strategy and development of dynamic IT systems that are able to support changing business objectives. To be prepared to meet such expectations, IT students must have broad experience in the design, implementation, and integration of such systems. This education is typically offered in a layered fashion, teaching students about databases, networks, and applications in different courses devoted to single topics (Nickerson, 2006). While this method allows universities to assign faculty with specific expertise to particular courses, it does not adequately prepare students for the work environment of the enterprise architect, where all of these different layers must be combined to support and align with business strategy. Students trained in a specific, narrow layer may fail to anticipate certain trends or requirements, such as a database designer overlooking the need for remote replication (Nickerson). To meet this need, many information technology programs are incorporating enterprise systems curricula for senior students. These courses are often referred to as “capstones” in the curriculum, and must focus on a wide variety of educational goals including understanding the enterprise as a whole, understanding how technology can provide a competitive advantage, learning to design complex integrated systems, learning concepts underlying technical systems integration, learning how to assess the requirements of an integrated system, and learning how enterprise architecture design is practiced as a profession.