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

ABSTRACT

The rapid adoption of cloud computing by organizations has resulted in the transformation of the roles and responsibilities of staff in managing the information technology (IT) resources (via IT governance controls) that have migrated to the cloud. Hence, the objective of this research is to provide a set of success factors that can assist IT managers to allocate the roles and responsibilities of IT controls appropriately to staff to manage the migrated IT resources. Accordingly, we generated a set of success factors from behavioral and information systems (IS) literature. These success factors were verified using in-depth interviews of executives from the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The empirical intervention suggests that the role allocation is driven predominantly by people’s skills, competencies, organizational strategy, structures, and policies. In addition, the research made clear that the most significant competency and skill for a person allocated to IT controls is to be able to evaluate and manage a cloud service provider, especially in terms of risks, compliance, and security issues related to public cloud technology. The findings of this study not only offer new insights for scholars and practitioners involved in assigning responsibilities but also provide extensions for IT governance framework authorities to align their guidelines to the emerging cloud technology.

Acknowledgment

Special thanks to Senior Associate Editor Dr. Kailash Joshi for several editorial and content improvements made to the manuscript.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Shafaq Khan

Shafaq Khan is an Assistant Professor at the University of Dubai. Since joining this university, she has received ‘Excellence in Teaching’ and the ‘Best Faculty’ awards. Her educational qualifications include a Masters in ‘Computing and Information Systems’, Masters in Electronics, Post Graduate Diploma in Computer Applications and Bachelors in Electronics. She is a certified cloud infrastructure specialist, certified project management professional (PMP), and a SAP certified ERP foundation consultant. Her research work has been published in several ranked journals and conference proceedings. Her current research interests are in cloud computing, IT governance, and IS security.

Mathew Nicho

Mathew Nicho is a lecturer in the School of Computing and Digital Media at Robert Gordon University in United Kingdom. He holds a Master’s degree in Information Systems, and a doctorate from the School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences of Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand. His current research interests are in the areas of information systems (IS) security management, IS vulnerabilities and mitigation, advanced persistent threats, information security governance, and information technology governance frameworks namely COBIT, ITIL, and PCI DSS. His research has appeared in several journals and conference proceedings, including Communications of the Association of Information Systems, International Journal of Information Security and Privacy, Information Systems Audit and Control journal, and Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

Haifa Takruri

Haifa Takruri is a full Professor at the university of Salford, UK. She obtained her BSc degree in Electrical Engineering from Birzeit University in Palestine, 1984, and her MSc and PhD in Instrumentation and Measurement from UMIST, UK, 1987 & 1990. An electronics engineer with a multidisciplinary practice, Prof Takruri’s current teaching focuses on mobile and wireless networking. Her research focuses on integrating networking technologies and instrumentation, in particular wireless sensor networks and their applications in intelligent buildings, networked appliances, precision agriculture and energy saving. She supervises a number of multidisciplinary PhD studies including sensor networks, mobile networks, e-commerce and gender in engineering and science. She also has extensive experience in successfully managing EU research and higher education funded projects.