Towards an effective structure of IT governance for organizations in developing economies

The pervasive use of IT is prominent amongst organizations in developing economies. However, there is growing evidence that these economies fail to capitalize on their IT investment to transform their organizations to be competitive both locally and globally. IT-related benefits are possible with appropriate governance of the IT-related resources, and we need to broaden our understanding on the IT governance mechanics suitable for organizations in the developing economies. In this study, we adopted an initial interpretive design to obtain a deeper understanding of the IT governance (ITG) environment and conceptions of the stakeholders on effective IT governance structures for the developing economies. We found that the presence of an IT Strategic Planning Committee, Multiple level of authority, and a Forum for informal discussions as the crucial components of an ITG structure in developing economies

Governance and information governance: some ethical considerations within an expanding information society

Governance and information governance ought to be an integral part of any government or organisations information and business strategy. More than ever before information and knowledge can be produced, exchanged, shared and communicated through many different mediums. Whilst sharing information and knowledge provides many benefits it also provides many challenges and risks to governments, global organisations and the individual citizen. Information governance is one element of a governance and compliance programme, but an increasingly important one, because many regulations apply to how information is managed and protected from theft and abuse, much of which resides with external agencies usually outside the control of the individual citizen. This paper explores some of the compliance and quality issues within governance and information governance including those ethical concerns as related to individual citizens and multiple stakeholders engaged directly or indirectly in the governance process

Reasonably good corporate governance

Attempts to determine what constitutes “good” corporate governance have become mired in the quicksand of the ethical conflict between duty and utility, virtue and rights, as well as the fight over for whose good the organization exists. This paper takes a different tack. Drawing upon evidence from the efforts to build and develop the UK code of corporate governance, it argues that the nature of “good” is intractable, but that in the practical world a philosophically pragmatic approach applies, exemplified in the preference for a comply-or-explain approach rather than more formal modes of regulation. Using Toulmin’s (2001) of advocacy the reasonable, in opposition to the rational, it argues that “reasonably good” governance is the best that can be expected, given the contingent nature of organizational life and strategies and the uncertain and potentially fungible benefits of various mechanisms of corporate governance

Governing for ecosystem health and human wellbeing

Governance arrangements and processes influence access to and benefits from ecosystem services, and therefore the potential for ecosystem services to alleviate poverty. Governance also then influences the health of ecosystems. This chapter learns from decades of governance-related research to identify how to make ecosystem governance more effectively ‘pro-poor’. It is informed by a systematic mapping of literature related to governance of ecosystem services and renewable natural resources for improved wellbeing and poverty alleviation, expert interviews and a workshop with government and non-government actors across a range of sectors from both North and South. The chapter is organised around the concept of trade-offs, considering first ecosystem-focused approaches, then rights-based approaches and lastly, participatory approaches to governance. The chapter further addresses the relevance of scale and multiple administrative levels (multi-level governance) and the importance of informal, or socially embedded, institutions. The chapter concludes that there is no single governance approach that can definitively deliver on improved ecosystem health and human wellbeing, that trade-offs are inevitable and governance is therefore an inherently political process

A Conceptual Framework for Measuring Benefits of E-Governance

E-Governance is about reform in governance, facilitated by the creative use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). This leads to better access to information and quality services for citizens. Government invests large sums of money in implementing e-governance projects for benefiting the citizens. The main objective behind e-governance is to provide support and simplify governance for citizens. Therefore it is important to understand the types of benefits realized by citizens as a result of adopting e-governance services. The present paper discusses the benefits of e-governance by reviewing the previous studies done by various researchers. The researches on the benefits of e-governance in the contexts of various developing and developed countries are reviewed. Based on the review of prior research, a framework for categorizing the benefits of e-governance is proposed in the context of India, wherein four dimensions of benefits are identified i.e., Economic Benefits, Quality of Service (QoS) benefits, Quality of Governance (QoG) benefits and Personal Development. The scales for measuring these benefits are also proposed. The proposed framework can be used for empirically examining the extent of these benefits realized by the citizens and for studying the contribution of these benefits in the overall effectiveness of e-governance. Keywords: E-governance, Information and Communication Technology, Economic Benefits, Quality of Service, Quality of Governance, Indi

Incentives to Corporate Governance Activism

This paper considers incentives faced by investors (financial institutions) to become actively involved in the governance of under-performing companies in their portfolio as recently proposed. By considering the private benefits and the costs of investor activism separately, it questions the conventional wisdom -based on simplistic agency theory - that share ownership is so widely held in the UK that such incentives are too weak for shareholder activism to be a rational basis of a system of corporate governance. It finds that in many cases, by contrast, these incentives would be very strong indeed if conflicts of interest could be avoided.Corporate governance, shareholder activism, incentives, free-rider problem, agency

COMPARATIVE STUDY ON CORPORATE GOVERNANCE

Corporate governance is a key element of todayâ€(tm)s economic reality being more and more present in many countries around the world. This paper has two main objectives. The first one is to offer more insight into the concept of corporate governance by a thorough literature review and by presenting and analyzing a framework of corporate governance. The second objective of this paper is to investigate the corporate governance situation in three developing economies (Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary). The World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development published a series of reports on corporate governance. The present study uses data from these reports in order to illustrate how these developing economies are dealing with corporate governance. Based on ROSC Reports a corporate governance score was calculated. As this score shows, there is room for improvement for all three developing economies. This study is important because it shows the differences in corporate governance among developing economies and the need to study these nations at the individual country level. Corporate governance has many benefits for developing economies. It helps developing economies to register sustainable growth rates, to increases investorsâ€(tm) confidence in the national economy, and to increase the ability of capital markets to mobilize savings.corporate governance, shareholders, stakeholders, investors, corporate governance principles

To steal or not to steal: Firm attributes, legal environment, and valuation

Newly released data on corporate governance and disclosure practices reveal wide within-country variation, with the variation increasing as legal environment gets less investor friendly. This paper examines why firms practice high-quality governance when law does not require it; firm attributes that are related to the quality of governance; how the attributes interact with legal environment; and the relation between firm valuation and corporate governance. A simple model, in which a controlling shareholder trades off private benefits of diversion against costs that vary across countries and time, identifies three relevant firm attributes: investment opportunities, external financing, and ownership structure. Using firm-level governance and transparency data on 859 firms in 27 countries, we find that firms with greater growth opportunities, greater needs for external financing, and more concentrated cash flow rights practice higher-quality governance and disclose more. Moreover, firms that score higher in governance and transparency rankings are valued higher in the stock market. Equally important, all these relations are stronger in countries that are less investor friendly, demonstrating that firms do adapt to poor legal environments to establish efficient governance practices.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/39939/3/wp554.pd

Towards a better understanding of how effective IT governance leads to business value : a literature review and future research directions

This paper reviews the existing literature on IT governance to assess whether IT governance has contributed to delivering business value from IT and if so, how. The conducted literature review has shown the scarce number of studies that focus on why and how effective IT governance may lead to business value. By using a structured literature review analysis, the paper has offered a number of insights to the topic of IT governance: a) provided a systematic definition of effective IT governance based on a multi-dimensional framework, b) listed benefits of effective IT governance, and c) identified mechanisms that lead effective IT governance to those benefits. This paper takes a step towards addressing the &lsquo;why&rsquo; and &lsquo;how&rsquo; knowledge gaps by synthesising the fragmented knowledge to provide the best that is known about the subject and to identify future research directions.<br /

Linkage and Multilevel Governance

Economic models of emissions trading implicitly assume a simple unitary governance structure, where a single regulator designs and enforces an emissions trading program. The Kyoto Protocol, however, employs a multilevel governance structure in which international, regional, national, sub-national, and even private actors have significant roles in designing and enforcing the trading program. Under this structure, international trading of credits requires complex linking of disparate regional, national, and subnational trading program. This paper describes the multilevel governance model employed in the Kyoto Protocol and then analyzes some of the problems this complexity creates for the project of creating an international market in environmental benefit credits to realize technology transfer benefits. This paper shows that multilevel governance creates costs that can interfere with technology transfer and free trade in credits. It concludes that rules sufficiently stringent to encourage technology transfer in the face of significant additionality problems will likely burden free trade in credits. Unfortunately, rules sufficiently relaxed to make international transactions simple and problem free will lack integrity and spawn non-additional credits greatly limiting the Kyoto Protocol\u27s potential as a technology transfer mechanism. The paper suggests that these governance complexities counsel against automatic embrace of linkage