ICT Governance and What to Do About the Toothless Tiger(s): Professional Organizations and Codes of Ethics

Authors

  • Don Gotterbarn East Tennessee State University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3127/ajis.v16i1.601

Keywords:

governance, failure, disaster, professional

Abstract

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has been with us for many years and in the past ten years there has been a growing interest in something called “ICT Governance” as a means of reducing information system disasters. There have been national organizations formed, professional organizations have organized sub-committees to address ICT Governance and it has even been called a “discipline”. The unwrapping of this concept, like many concepts, has several inconsistent interpretations and ineffective implementations in industry. In some cases the concept has been modified to meet a particular sectors needs. This broadening of concepts to fit individual needs is not new and sometimes is quite useful. There is however a fundamental mistake in the narrowness of most interpretations of ICT Governance which make it less likely that it will achieve its ultimate goals. I believe this mistake can and should be addressed by professional computing organizations. In what follows I will examine the various approaches to ICT governance, the difficulty it tries to address and I will argue for what I consider its critical limitations. I will than show how professional organizations can address the weakness of ICT governance using tools they already have at hand.

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Published

2009-11-01

How to Cite

Gotterbarn, D. (2009). ICT Governance and What to Do About the Toothless Tiger(s): Professional Organizations and Codes of Ethics. Australasian Journal of Information Systems, 16(1). https://doi.org/10.3127/ajis.v16i1.601

Issue

Section

Research on IS Governance