COBIT 5 and Enterprise Governance of Information Technology: Building Blocks and Research Opportunities

Abstract

COBIT, currently in its fifth edition, is a good-practice framework for the enterprise governance of IT. There is limited academic research that either analyzes COBIT or leverages COBIT as an instrument in executing research programs. Through linking core elements and principles of COBIT to insights from IT-related and general management literature, this paper explores the use of COBIT in future research activities. This paper positions COBIT as a framework for enterprise governance of IT. The major directions and core principles of the framework are described. Connections are made of these directions and principles to the relevant literature. Research questions for future research around enterprise governance of IT and COBIT 5 are proposed and discussed.

IT controls in the public cloud: Success factors for allocation of roles and responsibilities

“…Various iterations of COBIT are based on original research, on widespread use of experts in workshops and workgroups and on input from cognate frameworks. This approach does not portray a complete sampling of real-world conditions (Haes et al, 2013). This study led to the researcher's affirmation of a lack of guidance on the responsibility allocation factors of the IT controls.…”

“…This clearly indicates a research gap in terms of the allocation of roles and responsibilities in RACI charts in the COBIT framework. The deficiency of academic research on ITG in general (Lazic, 2011;Marrone et al, 2010) and on COBIT specifically has also been underscored by several researchers (Al Omari, Barnes, & Pitman, 2012;Haes et al, 2013).…”

“…Using COBIT and ITIL together links proven IT best practices (ITIL) to COBIT's regulatory and business requirements and makes the process improvement task much more achievable (Consulting, 2005). ITIL relates primarily to management rather than governance and to tactics rather than to strategy (Haes et al, 2013).…”

“… to design and implement effective organisations  for distributing IT-related decision making rights  to speed up decisions  to execute critical actions  to harmonise the competing interests of corporate IT users  implies control and direction  to distribute responsibilities of IT staff (Haes, Grembergen, & Debreceny, 2013;ITGI, 2013;Martins, Moura, da Cunha, & de Figueiredo, 2010;Sambamurthy & Zmud, 1999;Smits, Fairchild, Ribbers, Milis, & Geel, 2009) Relational mechanisms  are used in forming a link between business and IT  provide proper directions to corporations on the use of technology for delivering business opportunities for achieving competitive advantage  are used for maximising the value of IT Lazic, 2011) challenging to identify the success factors and criteria used by all ITG frameworks to allocate people to the roles and responsibilities of IT controls, for cloud as well for noncloud environments. Therefore a list of available ITG frameworks will be first identified, and then top three frameworks will be shortlisted and examined to evaluate the role allocation methods used in these frameworks.…”

A Causal Relationship Model of the Influence of Information Technology Governance Processes on the Benefits Received by Thai Public Companies

“…COBIT5 [6] is a business framework that is used to develop and support IT in companies to enable them to achieve their business goals in five areas: meeting the requirements of stakeholders, covering the enterprise end-to-end, applying a single integrated framework, enabling an holistic approach, and separating governance from management. There are five enabling ITG processes in this framework: governance framework and maintenance, beneficial delivery, risk, optimal resource usage, and transparency in governing IT to achieve business goals based on four balanced scorecard (BSC) perspectives: 1) learning and growth, 2) internal business processes, 3) customers, and 4) finances [7][8][9].…”