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Paper Number

1277

Paper Type

Complete

Description

Questioning the IT governance structures of international NGOs through the critical lens of post-colonial theory allows us to postulate a new combined theory. We conducted a series of 20 interviews with both international and local NGOs to examine IT decision structures more closely. Using the six aspects of post-colonial theory Lin et al. (2015) established, we examine potential additional influences in more detail. Our proposed theory explains our findings of mainly centralized governance structures that do not correspond to the innovation and flexibility goals we observed in addition to security needs and standardization efforts. We find that both IT goals (as part of IT governance) and post-colonial structures shaping organizational structures influence IT decision structures. Our findings indicate that we do not only need to take biases in the design of information systems but also in their governance into account.

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Dec 12th, 12:00 AM

Is Centralization Good IT Governance or Postcolonial: Insights from NGOs

Questioning the IT governance structures of international NGOs through the critical lens of post-colonial theory allows us to postulate a new combined theory. We conducted a series of 20 interviews with both international and local NGOs to examine IT decision structures more closely. Using the six aspects of post-colonial theory Lin et al. (2015) established, we examine potential additional influences in more detail. Our proposed theory explains our findings of mainly centralized governance structures that do not correspond to the innovation and flexibility goals we observed in addition to security needs and standardization efforts. We find that both IT goals (as part of IT governance) and post-colonial structures shaping organizational structures influence IT decision structures. Our findings indicate that we do not only need to take biases in the design of information systems but also in their governance into account.

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