Accountant in Global Age

Question :

The topic is IT governance and the research proposal should be based on a gap that is missing under this topic..

Answer :

Introduction

Background and Motivation

Nowadays the role of information technology has significantly increased in the organizations. Almost all aspects of various business activities depends on IT for success (Gregory et al, 2018). It has become a key resource and asset for the businesses. There are organizations who are completely dependent on IT for small to larger activities. Several businesses are solely running with the help of information technology (Van Grembergen and De Haes, 2018). Despite the prevalence of IT, one can still find organizations wasting their money behind poor IT acquisition, implementation, and execution. Not all technology works the same in all organizational settings. Information technology is a crucial aspect for business growth, and this strong dependence have also become cause for concern. This has led for the need of IT Governance (ITG) within the organizations. Studies have shown that the organizations that have strong ITG models perform better than those organizations who consider IT as an addition to the organization’s capability and not integral to everything (Tonelli et al, 2017). Investments in information technology has gone up with the desire to increase competitive ability. However, with the increased budgets, the pressure to cost control and monitoring has also gone up significantly. This is where it is expected that proper ITG implementation can play strong role in understanding the returns on information technology investments along with improving the performance of the organization. IT Governance provides various benefits to the organization. It has been identified that ITG brings clarity among the management about the strategy of the business and initiatives and strategy of the IT (Selig, 2018). IT becomes not only integral to the organization in its functional form, but also from the strategic point of view. It ensures that the staff members within the organization define their expectations clearly, participate effectively, and communicate with each other in a timely fashion. ITG also increases the organizations’ dependence on information technology and it monitors and tracks investments in IT and ensures that at the end business goals are achieved.

Despite the above mentioned benefits of ITG, organizations can be found wary of this aspect and their complete dependence on IT for everything (Al Qassimi and Rusu, 2015). This can often be traced back to the past failures or lack of trust over the ITG in achieving the organizational goals. Often it can be traced to the perception of the individuals within the organization who are responsible for the consideration and implementation of IT Governance. However, it is merely a hypothesis that needs testing. There are various barriers that often prevent successful IT Governance such as unwillingness to change, complexity and politics within the organization, lack of skills and knowledge, and negligible support of management (Lunardi et al, 2017). Though these aspects have been understood in detail in the past, there is rarely any research conducted in the past that studies the underlying reason behind the lack of support of management towards the ITG. Moreover, this study form of study has never been conducted among the manufacturers of Malaysia, which is another added gap of the study. Further, it can be hypothesized that the way managers perceive the contribution of ITG within the organization significantly influence whether they will support or reject its implementation. The support of the managers, whether they are at the top, middle, or bottom level within the organization, is necessary to ensure that any new change within the organization becomes successful. However, if they do not see any benefit in an activity or change, then they are less likely to support it, and this may lead to unsuccessful implementation. 

Considering the background above, the aim of this research study is to investigate the perception of managers towards IT Governance implementation in manufacturing industry in Malaysia.

It is expected that the findings of this research will be very helpful for businesses in understanding whether managers’ perception are acting as barrier to ITG. And if the study finds out that it is true, then the organizations can try to identify and implement possible solution to this challenge to ensure that ITG becomes central to their growth instead of a side support. 

Research Objectives

Given below are the research objectives:

- To understand the ITG more holistically with reference to manufacturing industries.

- To understand the perception of managers in manufacturing companies in Malaysia regarding ITG using primary research method.

- To identify possible recommendations for organizations willing to implement ITG.

Research Questions

Given below are the research questions:

- How IT Governance can benefit organizations?

- What are the barriers to IT Governance implementation within organizations?

- Does perception of managers impact ITG implementation within manufacturing organizations?

Significance of Research

The outcome of the research will benefit various stakeholders such as academics, practitioners, researchers, and key management personnel. The result will help the management personnel in understand that whether their perception is preventing the success of ITG in their organization. It will help them make decisions accordingly. Further, the academics can get newer insight in this aspect and they can take the study further based on the finding. It will be quite beneficial for the researchers who are interested to conduct similar studies particularly in Malaysia. 

Research Framework

The current research has considered only two aspects for study. The first is the perception of managers towards ITG within the organization, and the second is the success of ITG within the organization. The research framework of this study is quite simple that consists of only two variables. The independent variable is the perception of managers towards ITG and the dependent variable is the success of ITG within the organization. Given below is the diagram that depicts the research framework:

Figure 1: Research Framework