Absolute or Bicephalous Monarchies and Feudal Revolts: A Multiple Case Study of IT Governance Drifts and Resulting Political and Socio-Cognitive Inertia

Authors

Etienne Thenoz, University of NantesFollow

Abstract

E-commerce organizational transformations, owing to their cross-functional and inter-organizational nature, often lead to the confrontation of diverging objectives and visions. Although research has long highlighted the role of IT governance in the success of IS-enabled organizational transformations,attention to how governance can drift and fail to overcome organizational inertia remains scarce. Yet,this organizational inertia lies at the core of transformational difficulties. Through a multiple case studyof IT governance drifts in e-commerce transformations, we extend Weill & Ross’ (2004) politicalmetaphor to identify absolute business monarchies, feudal business revolts and bicephalous monarchiesas three IT governance drift patterns and analyze resulting political and socio-cognitive inertia. Wethen discuss our findings and the need to account for informal governance, politics and socio-cognitive frames to analyze IT governance. In the face of the complex and multiple central – local and business -IT alignment processes which make IT governance in e-commerce transformations prone to drifting, we advocate for a continuous tinkering approach to governance.

Recommended Citation

Thenoz, Etienne, "Absolute or Bicephalous Monarchies and Feudal Revolts: A Multiple Case Study of IT Governance Drifts and Resulting Political and Socio-Cognitive Inertia" (2020). In Proceedings of the 28th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS), An Online AIS Conference, June 15-17, 2020.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/ecis2020_rp/115