Dimensions and Operationalisations of IT Governance: A Literature Review and Meta-Case Study

This paper seeks to tackle the current confusion about the constituent dimensions of IT Governance (ITG) and inconsistent operationalisation approaches inhibiting advances in research and organisational ITG practice. Through a structured literature review of ranked high-quality publications augmented by a meta-case study with five underlying projects, we find nine distinct dimensions of ITG. The input-oriented dimensions Compliance Management, IT Investment Management and ITG Improvement have received little attention in earlier conceptualisations, while the more output-oriented dimensions Business/IT Alignment and Business Value Delivery have featured more often in related studies. Scope and application of ITG may depend on the organisational context and the intentional use, such as regulatory or strategic. Depending on the context, more research seems to be warranted to develop context-dependent measurement constructs of ITG that can be compared over studies.