Creating value through governing IT deployment in a public/private-sector inter-organisational context: a human agency perspective

Abstract

Harnessing value from Information Technology (IT) has long been a focus of research, but evidence is lacking about how effective practice of Information Technology Governance (ITG) contributes to creating value for stakeholders in inter-organisational contexts. This is especially so for public/private sector partnerships. In this study we used ISO/IEC 38500:2008, the corporate governance of IT standard, to direct analysis of how ITG was practised in deployment of a large IT project in an inter-organisational public/private sector context. The findings demonstrate that ITG strategies related to human agency contribute to the realisation of value for participating stakeholders, particularly through pre-emptive stakeholder participation in evaluating IT functionality of the old system and iteratively in deployment of the new system. Further, our investigation shows that ISO/IEC 38500:2008 has merit as an analytical framework to objectively evaluate corporate governance of IT, although there is need for some enhancement.