Organizational information provision : managing mandatory and discretionary utilization of information technology

Sammanfattning: This dissertation focuses on the organizational units that participate in the operation of shared information systems - and especially how the codification responsibilities (information creation, collection and recording) are described in the governance models: who are supposed to perform these activities and how are they promoted or hampered by the management control systems? The IT governance model describes the patterns of authority for key IT activities in an organization, which are allocated to different stakeholders to assure that the IT resources are managed and utilized to support the organization-s strategies and goals. Altogether, primary data has been compiled in eight case studies and one brief telephone survey. In addition, three previous case studies (produced by other researchers) have been used as secondary data. The findings indicate that technical responsibilities typically are addressed and managed in the IT governance models, but that the using departments- responsibilities in the operation rarely are described. Information collection and recording activities therefore risk to be left unmanaged from an information systems perspective. The thesis proposes that an information sourcing responsibility may be included in the IT governance models and that the management control systems can be redesigned to promote mandatory or discretionary information compilation and recording, such that the shared information systems produce the anticipated outcome.