Mechanisms that Influence IT Governance Effectiveness: Empirical Analysis in Private and Public Sector in Colombia

The influence of information technology (IT) is visible everywhere. The evolution of IT encourages firms to have more concerns about the role that IT is playing for achieving strategic goals. Worldwide is known that companies are making huge investments in IT acquisitions and also in how govern its complexity. As a result, IT governance gains attention among organizations. This study reviews individual IT governance mechanisms and their influence on IT governance effectiveness. The study examines how IT Intensity use by firms and IT governance experience influence IT governance effectiveness. The IT governance mechanisms selected were IT strategy committee, IT steering committee, involvement of senior management in IT, corporate performance measurement systems, ethics and culture of compliance, and corporate communication Systems. This study uses structural equation modelling to evaluate 293 valid surveys collected from members of the ISACA and PMI in Bogotá as well as the Colombian Association of Computer Science Engineers (ACIS). This study found that corporate communication systems and IT strategy committee have a positive and significant influence on the overall IT governance effectiveness. In firms with less than 10 years of IT governance experience, the influence of IT strategy committee is higher.