Anant Joshi

An Empirical Assessment of IT Governance Transparency: Evidence from Commercial Banking

We have developed an IT governance disclosure framework to examine how firms communicate their IT governance activities. Using this framework for a sample of 200 commercial banking firms, our empirical assessment indicates that differences in the level of disclosure are systematically related to differences in institutional settings. We also find that firms with relatively good corporate governance practices consider IT performance measurement matters to be highly important when informing and communicating with shareholders.

Understanding the Association between IT Governance Maturity and IT Governance Disclosure

IT governance (ITG) provides a toolbox for companies to realize maximum value from IT. Firms implement ITG via frameworks, such as COBIT or VALIT, which list processes to align business and IT strategies, deliver IT services and comply with regulations. While there exists evidence that companies with mature ITG processes outperform their competitors and that signaling ITG maturity to external stakeholders has a positive impact on firm value, little research has focused on the relationship between IT governance maturity and disclosure of related information. This study examines the association of COBIT and VALIT maturity on IT governance disclosure. The authors posit that overall maturity in COBIT and VALIT have a positive impact on IT governance disclosure. Our results indicate that there exists a positive impact for COBIT maturity and most of its domains on disclosure, while the impact of VALIT maturity on disclosure is mostly insignificant.

Exploring the Influence of Belgian and South-African Corporate Governance Codes on IT Governance Transparency

Building on prior research on how boards should provide stakeholder transparency by disclosing on how their organizations are governing their IT assets, this paper provides an exploratory insight in the contemporary state of IT governance transparency in Belgian and South African companies. Specifically, the influence of the national corporate governance code on IT governance transparency is investigated by comparing both groups of companies. Our findings show that South African firms tend to be more concerned with IT governance transparency than Belgian firms, given a comparable IT strategic role and ownership structure. This result could be expected, as the South African corporate governance code, King III, contains specific IT (governance)-related guidance, while the Belgian code Lippens does not. Accordingly, the case is made for including more (non-committal) IT (governance)-related guidance in national corporate governance codes.

Exploring the Contemporary State of Information Technology Governance Transparency in Belgian Firms

ABSTRACT This article provides an exploratory insight in the contemporary state of IT governance transparency in Belgian firms. Our findings show that Belgian firms exhibit low IT governance disclosure rates in general. We also find preliminary evidence that IT governance disclosure is positively related to IT usage intensity for listed firms, and that listed firms tend to be more concerned with disclosing on their IT governance compared to non-listed firms, given a comparable level of IT usage intensity.

Explaining IT governance disclosure through the constructs of IT governance maturity and IT strategic role

This study investigates the relation between the maturity of IT governance processes and the IT governance disclosure of firms. Furthermore, it examines whether the strategic role of IT in an industry induces systematic variation in IT governance disclosure. Based on a content analysis of annual reports and a field survey on the maturity of the implementation of COBIT processes, the results demonstrate a role of IT governance frameworks in stimulating accountability and transparency via enhanced external reporting of relevant IT information to external stakeholders, in particular in settings where the strategic role of IT is high.