Identifying the Enablers and Inhibitors of Organizational Learning in the Context of IT Governance: An Exploratory Delphi Study

ABSTRACT

Despite significant investments in training, many organizations fail to implement IT Governance. This problem is known as theory-practice gap. Organizational Learning has been suggested as an approach to overcome this problem but there is still lack of understanding about how Organizational Learning applies to the context of IT Governance. Therefore, this exploratory study presents insights from a Delphi study that was conducted to identify and rank enablers and inhibitors of Organizational Learning in this context.

KEYWORDS:

• IT Governance
• Organizational Learning
• learning organization
• knowing-doing gap
• theory-practice gap

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. A pretest of the questionnaire and the instructions enhances the reliability of the Delphi method, through e.g., detecting possible confusion and ambiguity (Paré et al., 2013).

2. Inhibitors: TOPIC = (“organi*ational learning” or “learning organi*ation”) AND TOPIC = (“inhibitors” or“barriers” or “obstacles” or “impediments”) Refined by: RESEARCH AREAS: (BUSINESSECONOMICS) AND DOCUMENT TYPES: (ARTICLE) Timespan: 2009–2019. Indexes: SCIEXPANDED, SSCI, A&HCI, CPCI-S, CPCI-SSH, ESCI.

3. Enablers: TOPIC = (“organi*ational learning” or “learning organi*ation”) AND TOPIC = (“enabler” or“facilitator” or “success factor”) Refined by: RESEARCH AREAS: (BUSINESS ECONOMICS) ANDDOCUMENT TYPES: (ARTICLE) Timespan: All years. Indexes: SCI-EXPANDED, SSCI, A&HCI,CPCI-S, CPCI-SSH, ESCI.

4. More information about the classification method can be found in annex 1. In addition the papers from Crossan et al. (1999), Bontis et al. (2002), and Schilling and Kluge (2009) gives further guidance on the definitions of the learning levels, processes and classification methodology.

5. For example, we added “related to IT Governance” to the description of “formal education/training” toillustrate that the aim of the training is to acquire knowledge related to IT Governance.

6. The enabler “Modeling the IT Governance processes (to detect opportunities for improvement)” was added to the list.

7. For example, the inhibitor “Strict work rules and regulations” was accepted by only 58.62% of theexperts. Accordingly, this inhibitor was removed from the initial list because there was insufficientagreement among experts (i.e. less than 90% acceptance) about the relevance of this inhibitor forOrganizational Learning in the context of IT Governance. An overview of other enablers and inhibitors which were excluded from the 2^nd and 3^rd round is available in annex 2.

8. Kendall’s W was computed using the software Minitab (Minitab, 2019), which estimates it as follows:$W=\frac{12{\sum }_{i=1}^N{R}_i^2-3k^{2}N\left(N+1\right){}^2}{k^{2}N\left(N^2-1\right)-k{\sum }_{j=1}^{k}Tj}$, with $T_j=\sum _{i=1}^{9j}\left(t_i^3-t_i\right)$N indicates the number of subjects, Σ R_i² indicates the sum of the squared sums of ranks for each of theranked N subjects, K the number of appraisers, T_j assigns the average of ratings to tied observation, t_iindicates the number of tied ranks in the i^th grouping of ties and, finally, g_j the number of groups of ties inthe j^th set of ranks. The calculation was performed using the option “without known standard”.

Additional information

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes on contributors

Koen De Maere

Koen De Maere, PhD, is visiting researcher in Information Technology Governance at the department of Management Information Systems of the Faculty of Business and Economics at the University of Antwerp and visiting researcher at the competence center “Digital Innovation” at Antwerp Management School. He is actively engaged in teaching “ethics” applied to the context of Data Science at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland. His research interests lie at the intersection between the Business and IT, CIO leadership, Innovation and Strategic Management, and Organizational Learning.

Steven De Haes

Steven De Haes, PhD, is a Full Professor in Information Systems Management at the University of Antwerp (Faculty of Applied Economics) and Dean of Antwerp Management School. He is actively engaged in teaching and applied research in the domains of Digital Strategies, IT Governance and Management, IT Strategy and Alignment, IT Value and Performance Management, IT Assurance and Audit, and Information Risk and Security.

Michael von Kutzchenbach

Michael von Kutzchenbach, PhD, is professor of digital management at the Institute of Management at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland. His main research interest lies in the interaction of hard and soft feedback systems thinking especially in the field of organizational learning as well as sustainability-oriented business model innovation and entrepreneurship for sustainability in an increasingly digital world. He is actively engaged in teaching at MSc, BSc and MBA level at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland. He is the founder of mvk-Kutzschenbach Institute for Sustainability Studies and member of System Dynamics Society.

Tim Huygh

Tim Huygh, PhD, is assistant professor at the Open University of The Netherlands (“Open Universiteit”) and visiting professor at the Antwerp Management School in Belgium. In these roles, he is actively teaching and coordinating topics such as IT governance, IT management, and digital strategy at the undergraduate, graduate, and executive level. He received his PhD in 2019 in the area of IT governance from the University of Antwerp. His research interests revolve around the governance and management of information and technology, and related issues (including business/IT alignment and IT business value).