The effect of critical success factors on IT governance performance
| Pages | 1418-1448 |
| Date | 27 September 2011 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/02635571111182773 |
| Published date | 27 September 2011 |
| Author | Edephonce N. Nfuka,Lazar Rusu |
| Subject Matter | Economics,Information & knowledge management,Management science & operations |
The effect of critical success
factors on IT governance
performance
Edephonce N. Nfuka and Lazar Rusu
Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyse the effect of critical success factors (CSFs) on
information technology (IT) governance performance in public sector organizations in a developing
country such as Tanzania.
Design/methodology/approach – Based on a previous study and a further literature review,
a research model was developed for analysing the relationship between the CSFs found for effective IT
governance in this environment and their effect on IT governance performance. A survey research
method was applied for data collection and sample data from Tanzanian public sector organizations
(this environment) obtained. Subsequently, a second-generation structural equation modelling
technique, namely partial least squares, was applied to test statistically the correlated effect.
Findings – The results indicate significant small to strong positive correlated effects on IT
governance performance. The CSF with the most significant correlated effect was “involve and get
support of senior management” and the one with the least “consolidate, standardize and manage IT
infrastructure and application to optimize costs and information flow across the organization”. Finally,
a CSF model for effective IT governance in this environment was proposed.
Research limitations/implications – The findings imply that decision makers can optimize
IT-related plans and use of scarce resources by concentrating on the CSFs that have a significant effect
on IT governance performance that could lead to an improvement of public service delivery. This
study is limited to a single developing country but future studies can involve more such countries to
broaden the insights into the effect of CSFs on IT governance performance in such environments.
Originality/value – By establishing the correlated effects between these CSFs and the IT
governance performance, this study has revealed a significant impact of CSFs on IT governance
performance. It also suggests a CSFs model for effective IT governance in this less-resourced
environment in which such studies have not been conducted before, yet which are vital for analysing
and improving IT governance.
Keywords Tanzania, Developing countries, Publicadministration, Criticalsuccess factors,
IT governanceperformance, Correlated effect, Publicsector
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Recently, in many public sector organizations, the use of information technology (IT)
has become pervasive in endeavours to support and evolve public service delivery
(Ali and Green, 2007; UN, 2010). This pervasive use of technology has caused critical
dependency on IT, which in today’s economic and administrative world that deals with
government service delivery involves a complex mix of political, organizational,
technical and cultural concerns (Sethibe et al., 2007). This calls for a focus on effective
IT governance, which is an actively designed set of IT governance mechanisms that
encourage behaviours consistent with the organization’s mission, strategy and culture
(Weill and Ross, 2004).
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0263-5577.htm
IMDS
111,9
1418
Received 2 February 2011
Revised 16 June 2011
Accepted 16 June 2011
Industrial Management & Data
Systems
Vol. 111 No. 9, 2011
pp. 1418-1448
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
0263-5577
DOI 10.1108/02635571111182773
While there are various definitions of IT governance (Simonsson and Johnson,
2005), one of the most prevalent is:
[...] an integral part of enterprise governance and has potential to provide mechanisms for
leadership and organizational structures and processes that ensure the organization’s IT
sustains and extends the organization’s strategies and objectives (ITGI, 2003).
Its potential lies in the fact that most significant IT concerns, current and future, are not
technology related, but governance related (Guldentops et al., 2002). For example,
Weill and Ross (2004) showed at least a 20 percent better return on IT investment when
effective IT governance is in place. Thus, IT-governance-related success factors must be
entrenched and adhered to in order to do away with inadequate governance
effectiveness, which has negative consequences for the IT contribution to public service
delivery.
Several studies have looked at such a concern about inadequate governance
effectiveness (Weill and Ross, 2004; Ali and Green, 2007) and the necessary success
factors (Weill, 2004; Tan et al., 2009). However, none of these studies has been carried out
within the context of a developing country like Tanzania (Imran and Gregor, 2007;
Nfuka et al., 2009), which has low human development in contrast to developed countries
(UNDP, 2010). For example, while the human development index that includes life
expectancy, gross national income per capita and access to knowledge was 0.398 in
Tanzania, in developed countries it was mostly above 0.8.
Such governance concern in Tanzanian public sector organizations
(this environment) is due to the fact that today there is a remarkable amount of IT
applications. Examples include applications to manage government employees, income
tax and the distribution of medical supplies (Nfuka et al., 2009). However, such
applications among others are coupled with fragmented IT initiatives with loss of
synergies and economies of scale in and across organizations, leading to duplication of
effort and resources (Ndou, 2004; Bakari, 2007). For example, the Tanzanian
Government’s weakness in streamlining some IT applications and enabling
infrastructure cost US$200m and caused duplication of work (Maimu, 2006).
Such a concern is also due to the need to manage the rising IT investment
cost-effectively, e.g. the implementation of a national fibre-optic backbone was
estimated at US$170m (IP, 2010) and an upgrade of the HR system that manages
government employees at US$1m (PO-PSM, 2010). This also applies to a guide to
strategic IT integration into public sector reforms and poverty reduction and economic
growth strategy, in which most improvements are based (Mutagahywa et al., 2007).
This concern is amplified by constraints on IT resources, knowledge and culture in
this environment. For example, IT infrastructure accessibility that apart from
remarkable mobile penetration with tele-density increasing from 1 percent in 2000 to
about 46 percent by June 2010 (TCRA, 2010), there is still low access to the internet: the
available statistics indicate 1.6 percent of the population in contrast to more than
60 percent in most developed countries (IWS, 2010). Other constraints are awareness of
IT potential and familiarity and culture to embrace the optimal management and use of
IT (Nfuka et al., 2009; Rusu and Paul Tenga, 2010).
However, based on IT governance focus areas (ITGI, 2003; Buckby et al., 2008) and
five organizations in this environment, an exploratory study to address such a gap was
pursued (Nfuka and Rusu, 2010a). This study identified critical success factors (CSFs),
The effect of
CSFs on IT
governance
1419
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