The Social Representation of IT Governance: The Standpoint of IT Professionals

Joia, Luiz Antonio; Torres, Valéria Cristina Salvador

doi:10.1590/1807-7692bar2022210044

person Luiz Antonio Joia

schoolFundação Getulio Vargas, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

0000-0002-5903-5190

person Valéria Cristina Salvador Torres

schoolFundação Getulio Vargas, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

0000-0001-9349-3892

person* Corresponding author

Editors-in-Chief:

Carlo Gabriel Porto Bellini (Universidade Federal da Paraíba, Brazil)

Ivan Lapuente Garrido (Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos, Brazil)

Associate Editor:

Antonio Carlos Gastaud Maçada (Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil)

Reviewers:

Two anonymous reviewers.

Editorial assistants:

Kler Godoy and Simone Rafael (ANPAD, Maringá, PR, Brazil)

groupsAuthors’ contributions

1^st author: conceptualization (lead), data curation (supporting), formal analysis (equal), funding acquisition (equal), investigation (equal), methodology (equal), project administration (equal), resources (equal), software (supporting), supervision (lead), validation (lead), visualization (supporting), writing - original draft (supporting), writing - review & editing (lead).

2^nd author: data curation (equal), formal analysis (equal), investigation (equal), resources (equal), software (lead), supervision (supporting), validation (supporting), visualization (lead), writing - original draft (lead), writing - review & editing (supporting).

Authors

Luiz Antonio Joia*

Fundação Getúlio Vargas

Rua Jornalista Orlando Dantas, n. 30, 234, Botafogo, 22231-010, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

luiz.joia@fgv.br

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5903-5190

Valéria Cristina Salvador Torres

Fundação Getúlio Vargas

Rua Jornalista Orlando Dantas, n. 30, 234, Botafogo, 22231-010, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

vtorres008@gmail.com

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9349-3892

ITG definitions	Key dimensions	References
ITG is based on structures or architectures (and the associated authority patterns) implemented to conduct feasible activities (imperatives of IT) in response to the organizational environment and strategic intentions of the company.	Structure, Strategy	Sambamurthy and Zmud (1999)
ITG refers to responsibility structures and entitlement to decision-making to elicit desirable behaviors in relation to IT.	Responsibility, Structure, Decision	Weill and Ross (2004)
ITG is the organizational competence exerted by the board and IT executives to control the formulation and implementation of IT strategies to ensure the business-IT alignment.	Control, Strategy, Alignment	Van Grembergen et al. (2004)
ITG is the system by which the IT portfolio of an organization is managed and controlled, comprising (a) distribution of decision-making and responsibility entitlement on IT issues among all the organization’s stakeholders and (b) rules and procedures to make IT strategy-related decisions and track them.	IT Portfolio, Management, Control, Decision, Responsibility, Rules and Procedures, Strategy	Peterson (2004)
ITG is the strategic alignment of IT with the business in order to maximize the business value via IT governance development and maintenance of effective IT control and tracking, performance management, and risk management.	Strategy, Alignment, Value, Control, Performance, Management, Risk	Webb et al. (2006)
ITG basically concerns the IT-referred decision-making process: from the elaboration of it to the implementation of the decisions related to the objectives, processes, personnel, and technology both at tactical and strategic levels.	Decision, Process, Personnel, Strategy, Tactics	Simonsson and Johnson (2006)
ITG is a responsibility of the organization’s board and executives. It is an integral part of corporate governance, comprising leadership mechanisms, organizational structure, and processes that ensure IT can support and enhance the organization’s strategies and objectives.	Leadership, Structure, Process, Strategy	IT Governance Institute [ITGI] (2006)
ITG is the system by which current and future IT use is guided and controlled. It involves assessment and management of IT use to support the organization in monitoring it to achieve its plans. It includes strategies and policies for IT use in the organization.	Control, Assessment, Management, Monitoring, Planning, Strategy, Policy	International Organization for Standardization [ISO] / International Electrotechnical Commission [IEC] (2008)
ITG comprises the system in charge of distributing responsibilities and rights on IT decisions, as well as managing and controlling the technological resources of the organization, aiming, thus, to ensure the IT alignment with the organizational strategies and objectives.	Responsibilities, Rights, Decision, Management, Control, Alignment, Strategy	Lunardi (2008)
ITG refers to the board’s responsibility in overseeing the definition and implementation of processes, structures, and relationship mechanisms in the organization in order to enable IT-business alignment and consequently the business value of IT.	Responsibility, Process, Structure, Relationship, Alignment, Value	Van Grembergen and De Haes (2009)
ITG allows the information and the related technologies to support and enable the organization’s strategy and objectives in order that IT capabilities can be provided with efficiency and effectiveness.	Strategy, Capabilities, Efficiency, Effectiveness	Information Systems Audit and Control Association [ISACA] (2012)
ITG definitions	Key dimensions	References
ITG can be defined as the specification and assignment of decision entitlement, processes and communication mechanisms for IT management and control, leading IT to be strategically aligned with the business and allowing the delivery of IT-enabled value to the business.	Decision, Process, Communication, Management, Control, Strategy, Alignment, Value	Alves, Riekstin, Carvalho, and Vidal (2013)
ITG is an important organizational skill to promote IT-business alignment and the delivery of IT value for the business. To implement IT governance, the companies may use a set of practices associated with decision-making processes and relationship mechanisms.	Alignment, Value, Practice, Process, Decision, Relationship	Bermejo, Tonelli, Zambalde, Santos, and Zuppo (2014)

Frequency	Amount of semantic categories	Decreasing sum of evocations	Decreasing sum of evocations (%)
1	16	662	100%
2	16	646	97.6%
3	8	614	92.7%
4	4	590	89.1%
5	4	574	86.7%
6	8	554	83.7%
7	5	506	76.4%
8	3	471	71.1%
9	5	447	67.5%
10	7	402	60.7%
11	1	332	50.2%
14	1	321	48.5%
15	1	307	46.4%
16	3	292	44.1%
19	2	244	36.9%
28	1	206	31.1%
29	1	178	26.9%
37	1	149	22.5%
43	1	112	16.9%
69	1	69	10.4%

Parameter	Value
Minimum frequency of evocation	11
Intermediary frequency (median)	19
Mean value of the AOE	2.9

	Order of evocation < Mean value of the AOE (2.90)	Order of evocation > Mean value of the AOE (2.90)
Frequency of evocation > AFE (19)	Central Nucleus Control (69; 2.16) Management (37; 2.46) Strategy (29; 2.72) Alignment (19; 2.42) Planning (28; 2.64)	1^st Periphery Processes (43; 3.05) Direction (19; 3.11)
Frequency of evocation < AFE (19)	Contrast Zone Framework (16; 2.63) Organization (14; 2.00) Responsibilities (11; 2.64)	Peripheral System Guidelines (16; 2.94) Standardization (16; 3.63) Decision (15; 3.47)

Components of ITG	Description of ITG components	Scientific literature (references)	Perception of IT professionals via SRT
Alignment	IT governance: Aims to ensure the strategic alignment/merger between IT and business; • Support and enable the organization strategy to achieve its objectives and plans; • Regulates the formulation, execution, and control of the IT strategy.	Sambamurthy and Zmud (1999); Peterson (2004); Van Grembergen et al. (2004); Simonsson and Johnson (2006); Webb et al. (2006); ISO and IEC (2008); Lunardi (2008); Van Grembergen and De Haes (2009); ISACA (2012); Alves et al. (2013); Bermejo et al. (2014); Wu et al. (2015); Chi, Huang, and George (2020).	Mandatory (central nucleus)
Strategy
Control	Control and tracking of IT; • Control of the IT portfolio.	Peterson (2004); Van Grembergen et al. (2004); Simonsson and Johnson (2006); Webb et al. (2006); ISO and IEC (2008); Lunardi (2008); Alves et al. (2013).
Management	IT management (tactical and operational).	_
Planning	Budgetary planning of IT.	_
Decision	Decision-making on IT - Who decides what?	Peterson (2004); Weill and Ross (2004); Simonsson and Johnson (2006); Lunardi (2008); Alves et al. (2013).	Secondary (peripheral system)
Standards (Guidelines and Standardization)	Guidelines for decisions and activities related to IT; Standardization of IT activities via frameworks of reference such as ITIL, COBIT, etc.	Iden and Eikebrokk (2014); Ramlaoui and Semma (2014); Schaefer, Baierle, Nara, Benitez, and Haetinger (2020).	Secondary (peripheral system)