Abstract
IT governance is a relatively new concept in Malaysia. There are limited studies available related to IT governance in Malaysia. Thus, this paper surveys 50 Malaysian SMEs in the state of Melaka in regard to their understanding of IT governance. Results indicate that IT governance is new to them. Findings also show that IT governance performance is related to ownership of decision making and various formal governance mechanisms. Although they know the benefits of IT governance, majority of them do not implement IT governance. The findings are discussed and interpreted to provide implications to companies and Malaysian government.
Highlights
Malaysia has been allocating considerable amount of money in ICT development in the country every year
Based on National SME Development Council (2005), there are a total of 523,132 companies in Malaysia
The findings indicate that all independent variables are significantly related to the importance of IT governance
Summary
Malaysia has been allocating considerable amount of money in ICT development in the country every year. SMEs play an important role in the economic growth of Malaysia. These two sectors play important roles in the growth of the country Their relationship should be investigated to determine how SMEs can leverage the power of ICT in building their business strength. According to Tan et al (2008, 2009a, 2009b), it is found that security continues to be a major barrier for SMEs to adopt Internetbased ICT Their finding implies that it is important for SMEs to have proper mechanism to govern the IT process in company either in intranet, extranet or Internet platform. Tan et al (2008, 2009a, 2009b) have conducted IT governance survey among Malaysian electronic companies and found that IT governance is important to profit- and growth-oriented organisations in terms of cost efficiency, growth, asset utilisation and business flexibility.
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