Beyond the Debate over Centralized vs. Decentralized IT Governance: Lessons Learned from Two Leading Municipalities

Abstract

IT governance as the structure and process of managing IT is a crucial organizational arrangement for fully exploiting the potential benefits of IT. The literature on IT governance suggests two distinctive approaches-centralized versus decentralized IT governance, and a hybrid model located between the two extremes. Two case studies from Wahington D.C. and Gangnam-gu illustrate that the choice of IT governance model is associated with organizational and environmental contexts, and successful IT management depends on how well a government creates and IT governance structure and process compatible with given conditions.