Decision Support Framework for the Implementation of IT-Governance

The role of information technology (IT) is transmitting from a support tool into a source of competitive advantages. Continuous change in business performance raises the pressure on IT to change at the same speed. To create sustainable value, it is necessary for organizations to link the development of an IT strategy to the business strategy. In this paper the authors address the issue of implementing IT Governance into the organizational context by introducing a decision support framework. The basic research framework is the IT Governance model by Weill and Ross (2004) with its five decision fields: IT principles, IT architecture, IT infrastructure, business applications, IT investment and prioritization. Using survey data from 480 large organizations in German-speaking countries (Austria, Germany, Switzerland), this paper investigates the use of IT Governance initiatives and their implementation. A decision support framework for organizations was developed to implement IT Governance successfully in the country-specific context.