Communications of the ACM

Segmenting
the groups indicates
technology
professionals
are somewhat less
likely to endorse
participatory
governance,
while business
professionals
are much more
likely to endorse it.

The discussion here contrasts the way corporate leaders have governed technology in the past and where technology governance is likely to go. Participatory governance is a response to the relatively closed governance structures and processes prevalent in the 20th and early 21st centuries. It is also described by interviewees as a response to the general diffusion of digital technology within and beyond corporate firewalls. The whole notion of governance has expanded. Our data confirms emerging trends in the acquisition and control of technology assets, as well as in the administration of technology processes and services.

Companies routinely look outward to make technology decisions; that is, they find they must consult stakehold-ers/participants outside their companies to make important technology acquisition, deployment, and support decisions. We consolidated the results from multiple surveys, supplemented by interviews used to (anecdotally) vali-date/invalidate what the survey data told us.

Figure 2 outlines the governance participants identified in our data. The survey and interview questions focused on governance participants, models, and processes. The result of the surveys and interviews filled a new RACI-based governance matrix presented here. The number of participants in the emerging governance process has increased, and nearly all growth is outside the proverbial corporate firewall. Some new participants are the result of changes in the way technology is acquired, deployed, and supported (such as the vast number of cloud computing providers under contract today). Similarly, integrated supply chains have increased dependency among technology providers. Finally, since many customers are glued to their social networks, companies today must engage them through communication and content networks they do not control in any way, shape, or form. How do they “ govern” this activity?

Survey and Interview Data

The data was collected from surveys conducted by the author at Villanova University through the Cutter Consortium ( http://www.cutter.com) 2008–

2014 and from interviews the author conducted 2004–2014 with CIOs and CTOs who were part of the Villanova University CIO Technology Advisory Council, a rotating group of more than 50 local, regional, and national technology executives. The surveys and interviews involved more than 500 technology managers and executives. Data was collected through surveys and face-to-face interviews repeated every two years. Survey instruments and questionnaires were developed for both data-collection processes. General technology-adop-tion questions, as well as specific questions, were asked about technology governance and alternative organizational structures. The data reflects input from both the technology and business sides of companies whose participants were asked to identify their roles in technology management. The data reported here represents the combined percentages for the period 2008–2014.

Figure 3 outlines very different governance perceptions and attitudes from those expressed in surveys conducted in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Note first the distinctions among operational technology, strategic technology, and emerging technology. Note, too, the range of referenced stakeholders. There are the usual suspects—the corporate and business-unit clients—but there is also a new cast of characters, including vendors, providers, partners, and even “the crowd,” or the random actors who gather on social-media sites. The full cast is why the range of governance and number of governance stakeholders is dramatically different today, and why the whole notion of control will yield to what might be called “participatory” or “shared” control.

Also note the differences between technology and business professionals. While business professionals hold strong views about governance trends, the technology professionals also acknowledge the changes in technology management and acquisition, even though their opinions are measurably different from those of business professionals.