To investigate the state of IT governance in the South African banking sector - with particular reference to the Nedbank branch network at eThekwini.

Masters Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.Information technology (IT) is at the core of banking operations; it is the fabric pervading everything. Banks cannot provide their products and services without relying on IT; they are completely dependent on IT. This dependence on IT is a source of significant risk because the non-availability of IT systems renders the business impotent to provide its product and services and to generate revenue. This gives rise to the paradoxical dilemma in that for banks to provide their products, services and to innovate, they are dependent on IT and this dependence is the source of significant risk. More so, banks are not merely dependent on IT for their daily operational needs but also reliant on IT to achieve their strategic goals and for overall advantageous competitive positioning and it is this irony that has banking executives, regulators and stakeholders concerned. It is well established that IT governance (ITG) is essential to the overall success of organisations. It provides a mechanism to manage the risks associated with IT as well as the ability to maximize and sustain organisational performance. Yet, given the axiomatic importance of ITG, we have seen failures of IT systems at large banking organisations resulting in huge financial losses and reputational damage; all attributed to failures in governance. More so disclosures related to these failures are opaque to non-existent; with the effectiveness of IT governance and strategic alignment being the least disclosed and transparent. The consequence of this is that we do not know the current state of IT governance nor its effectiveness at banking institutions due to the lack of transparency and disclosures in the reporting of IT failures resulting from a lapse in IT governance. Nor do we know how adequate the IT governance regime is. The externalities of banking institutions to the society at large warranted the need to understand the state of IT governance in the South African banking sector. This study investigates the state of IT governance in the South African banking sector with particular reference to the Nedbank branch network in eThekwini, a municipality in KwaZulu-Natal. Data was collected, from Nedbank branches included in the sample, using a self-administered questionnaire as the survey instrument with items developed to interrogate the state of strategic alignment and using this as a proxy for the maturity of IT governance. This approach is well established in the literature. The results of the study showed that the Nedbank branch managers in the eThekwini region of KwaZulu-Natal agreed or strongly agreed that there is significant strategic alignment at Nedbank and consequently a high degree or maturity of IT governance. The study, further, recommends that a larger study be conducted to include branches from all the provinces in South Africa and compare the results. The disparity in the gender of Nedbank branch managers was noted and it would be interesting to study whether this disparity contributed to the results and is recommended for future research

How Does Information Technology Governance Impact Organizational Performance: A MetaSEM Study

The literature establishes a positive association between IT governance and business performance. Nevertheless, we still do not completely understand how IT governance impacts firms. Informed by the literature, we hypothesize that IT strategic alignment and IT-enabled dynamic capabilities are two mechanisms that mediate the impact of IT governance on performance. We use a meta-analytic structural equation modeling (MetaSEM) method to create an integrative view of the existing fragmented literature. Our findings provide empirical support for our hypotheses. Our work contributes to the technology-mediated business value creation by providing a refined perspective on IT governance. Besides, our work yields a high-level understanding of why IT initiatives may fail and how to use IT governance to improve the performance of IT investments

The relationship between ERP systems success and internal control procedures: a Saudi Arabian study

A thesis submitted to the University of Bedfordshire, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of PhilosophyIn recent years, Internal Control has become the focus of attention every time there is a notable scandal in the corporate world. An effective internal control system can prevent an organisation from fraud and errors, and provide an organisation with assurance and competitive advantages. It is argued that in order to have a robust internal control system, an integrated system, such as an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system is needed. ERP systems have the ability to control user access and facilitate the separation of duties, which is one of the most common internal control mechanisms used in order to deter fraud within financial systems. Moreover, there are other factors that can provide support for effective internal control systems. This thesis aims to explain how ERP success, organisational and ERP factors affect the effectiveness of internal control procedures. In particular, this thesis develops and validates a research model with empirical evidence collected in the context of the Saudi Arabia business environment. In order to achieve the research aim, this research identifies four key propositions derived from the existing literature to establish the relationships between organisational factors, ERP factors, ERP success and effectiveness of internal control procedures. An exploratory study is used to initially test the four propositions. The findings indicate that different companies follow different requirements that mainly depend on ownership. Additionally, the study indicates that the eight components of the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission’s (COSO) Enterprise Risk Management framework are considered by the companies investigated, however there are variations regarding their level of consideration. The findings suggest that further study is needed to explain the impact of ERP success on internal control and to measure the effect of the organisational and ERP factors. Based on the four propositions, four hypotheses are developed and tested in a quantitative study. A questionnaire is constructed and sent to 217 Saudi ERP-implemented companies. 110 valid responses are received. Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) is adopted for data analysis and hypothesis testing. The results suggest that the maturity of the ERP systems, formalisation and centralisation can impact on the success of ERP systems. Prospectors’ strategy, organisational culture and management support are positively related to the effectiveness of internal control procedures. The study results show a positive significant relationship between the success of ERP systems and effectiveness of internal control procedures. This research contributes to the knowledge at different levels. At the theoretical level, it develops and validates a theoretical framework that links the ERP system success to the effectiveness of internal control procedures. At the methodological level, unlike many of previous studies, this study adopts multiple data collection methods, and a powerful statistical technique, PLS-SEM to generate more robust outcomes. Finally, at the practice level, the study is conducted in Saudi Arabia, which is different from the developed countries in many aspects, such as internal control regulations and taxation system. Thus, the findings can be beneficial to Saudi organisations as well as other Middle-East countries

Investigating the practices of project governance in public sector infrastructure program in Pakistan

The governance of public sector infrastructure projects became an important area of interest in the literature on project management. Today, it is a focal point for policymakers to ensure successful appraisal and implementation of government-sponsored programs. This paper aims to investigate the current practices of project governance (PG) for steering the public sector infrastructure program in Pakistan. An empirical investigation was carried out among professionals of public sector organizations involved in different infrastructure development projects. Latent construct of PG was validated through second-order confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and quantified the three dimensions of PG, i.e., portfolio direction (PD), sponsorship, effectiveness, and efficiency (SEE), and disclosure and reporting (DR) through the relative importance index (RII) method. The result showed that DR is among the least practicing dimension having RII = 0.55, while PD and SEE have shown similar prevalence with RII = 0.70 and 0.69, respectively. Overall, the most practicing item in the PG was "the alignment of portfolios with objectives and strategy" whereas the lowest practicing item relates to the "completeness of project information distribution due to the multi-layered bureaucratic system." The findings of this study will guide the decision makers to take appropriate measures for enhancing the effectiveness of PG in Pakistan

ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks: a literature review

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation is a complex and vibrant process, one that involves a combination of technological and organizational interactions. Often an ERP implementation project is the single largest IT project that an organization has ever launched and requires a mutual fit of system and organization. Also the concept of an ERP implementation supporting business processes across many different departments is not a generic, rigid and uniform concept and depends on variety of factors. As a result, the issues addressing the ERP implementation process have been one of the major concerns in industry. Therefore ERP implementation receives attention from practitioners and scholars and both, business as well as academic literature is abundant and not always very conclusive or coherent. However, research on ERP systems so far has been mainly focused on diffusion, use and impact issues. Less attention has been given to the methods used during the configuration and the implementation of ERP systems, even though they are commonly used in practice, they still remain largely unexplored and undocumented in Information Systems research. So, the academic relevance of this research is the contribution to the existing body of scientific knowledge. An annotated brief literature review is done in order to evaluate the current state of the existing academic literature. The purpose is to present a systematic overview of relevant ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks as a desire for achieving a better taxonomy of ERP implementation methodologies. This paper is useful to researchers who are interested in ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks. Results will serve as an input for a classification of the existing ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks. Also, this paper aims also at the professional ERP community involved in the process of ERP implementation by promoting a better understanding of ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks, its variety and history

Investigating the relation between legal disclosure environments and IT governance transparency

The relevance of information technology has steadily increased over past decades. As a result, corporate disclosure about IT governance aspects is of considerable interest to investors. Despite such disclosure being voluntary and not enforced by law, this research investigates whether there is any relation between varying legal disclosure environments and the level of IT governance disclosure by companies. To investigate this relationship, 48 companies´ 2015 annual reports are analysed in accordance with an IT governance disclosure framework previously constructed by Bollen et al. (2013). Moreover, the World Bank’s Business Extent of Disclosure Index is used as a proxy for legal disclosure environments. The results imply no significant relation between legal disclosure environments and the level of IT governance disclosure which indicates that other factors on the industry and firm-level play a more significant role in determining the level of IT governance disclosure

Impact of Effective Information Technology Governance on Audit Technology Performance in Ghana

The notion of Industry 4.0 significantly changed the way firms’ operate and has influenced everyday life. The rapid digitalization and emergent trend of information technology (IT) transformation in firms and ample investment in IT by Ghanaian government stimulated the importance of IT-based risks and its associated controls. In addition, technology enabled the auditing and IT-related audit methods have significance when carrying out audit tasks. This study aims to investigate the effects of IT governess effectiveness on audit technology performance in the public sector of Ghana. This study used closed-ended to collect data. An online survey admitted to record 186 responses. The findings of the study stated that top management support, IT support services, and IT committee have a positive and statistically significant influence on audit technology performance. The proposed model of the study explained 65.1% variance in the audit technology performance. The study proposes that public sector companies must strengthen IT governance by developing an appropriate IT committee and IT support services for the auditors. Besides, firms should clearly elucidate their priorities and requirements associated with technology-based training in their IT policies, and action plans to improve the utilization of audit technology. Keywords: Information technology governance, audit technology performance, IT support services, IT committee, top management support. DOI: 10.7176/RJFA/11-24-05 Publication date: December 31st 202

IT governance matter: A structured literature review

The aim of this paper is to critically explore information technology governance (ITG) context, its consequences, its various aspects, its determinants, disclosure, maturity, and challenges. There are some motivations that urge the researchers to carry out this study. First, the review of prior relevant literature reveals a limited number of studies addressing the IT governance context, its consequences, its various aspects, its determinants, and challenges. Second, very little is known about the potential implications of IT governance within the business and how it is significant to the decision-makers (e.g., shareholders, board of directors, executives, etc.). Finally, little research employs the structured literature review (SLR) approach to critically discuss and analyze the IT governance context with its various aspects. The systematic and structured literature review has been employed for a critical analysis of the previous studies on IT governance. It is found that effective ITG has a positive impact on the firm performance in consistent with Altemimi and Zakaria (2017), Hulme (2012). Additionally, it is concluded that there is a positive association between ITG, the trustworthiness and the level of financial disclosure agreeing with (Raghupathi, 2007; Ali & Green, 2007). It is also concluded that the level of ITG disclosure is higher within firms in Europe (67%) than in the US (49%) complementing with Joshi et al. (2013). The adoption of the SLR methodology enables this paper to derive unbiased empirical insights and critique into the current ITG research and to identify possible directions for future ITG research, which may possibly be of interest to the academics, regulators, and professional bodies (e.g., shareholders, board of directors, executives, etc.)

Corporate Social Responsibility: Organizational Strategy for Sustainable Growth

We often cast a question whether unethical behavior (corporate irresponsible activities) undertaken by international firms in developing countries is really entirely unethical or simply unavoidable grease, which is necessary to facilitate short-term growth in overseas markets. Both strategic management and international business scholars have long attempted to examine the outcomes of corporate social responsibility (CSR) primarily in the organizational strategic aspect. Due to this, they are turning a blind eye to firms’ unethical attitude and pretending not to notice that it is happening. In other words, we do not yet know enough about CSR from a long-term perspective and its relationship with sustainable growth for the long-term. We should also acknowledge that a firm’s unethical management is both a primary cause and a result of poverty in our economy, which means that a firm’s irresponsible activities (as an antonym of CSR) cannot be justified by any reason. This also represents the importance of research exploring CSR. We believe that this is the time to, first, synthesize diverse research fragments on CSR, second, combine it with an additional unique agenda (e.g., human rights, win-win partnership, official development assistance) particularly in the sustainability domain, and then third, compile all the theoretical and empirical pieces for organizational sustainability. By inviting submissions from researchers who studies various theoretical perspectives, adopts varied empirical approaches, and examines at multiple levels of analysis, as well as qualitative and quantitative experiments, literature reviews, and meta-analyses, this SI draws a big picture. We are strongly convinced that papers accepted by this SI significantly contribute to current relevant debates by filling many extant research gaps