Lawrence, Cameron

cameron.lawrence@business.umt.edu 

The Transformation of IT Governance: a neo-institutional interpretation

(2005)

The aim of this thesis is to examine how deeply institutionalised IT governance arrangements change over time. This research project focuses on the transformation journey of the IT organisation within one state government in America. This journey witnessed a historically dominant model of managing the IT function break down, and lose organisational legitimacy; and the process that gave rise to a fundamentally different organisational arrangement. This process was captured through a longitudinal case study lasting several years.

It is clear that the information systems (IS) research community has invested considerable energy in, and made progress toward, understanding the different ways to organise an enterprise's IT activities. However, little research has been directed at the process 'dynamics' of IT function transformation.

Furthermore, a review of the subset of literature related to the transformation of the IT function takes a predominantly one-sided perspective that relies on what Orlikowski calls 'planned change' models. These models '…presume that managers are the primary source of organisational change, and that these actors deliberately initiate and implement changes in response to perceived opportunities to improve organisational performance or "fit" with the environment' (Orlikowski 1996).

This research is an attempt to provide an alternative perspective to the planned change models that dominate the literature about the transformation of the IT function. This is accomplished by drawing upon neo-institutional theory and conceptualising the IT function as an 'institution'. This perspective suggests that IT governance arrangements within some organisations possess a deeply ingrained, taken-for-granted, status that is resistant to change.

We submit that a neo-institutional approach provides us with a well-established body of knowledge that allows us to conceptualise the IT function, and its transformation, in a more meaningful, and theoretically rigorous, manner. The process of institutional change captured in our case study is analysed and explained by coupling two innovative analytic frameworks found within the larger neo-institutional literature. The coupling of the analytic frameworks enables us to provide an insightful and nuanced interpretation of the IT function transformation process, which has implications for theory and practice alike.

Cameron Lawrence is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Information Systems and Technology at the The University of Montana School of Business Administration in Missoula, Montana, USA.

Supervisor: Professor C Avgerou

Cameron Lawrence's personal web page.

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