The main objective of this thesis is to investigate the impact and role of implementing information technology (IT) governance practices on the business value driven from IT. The proposed research model encompasses the use of configurational theory in order to find different gestalts of IT governance practices. This research also looks at the links between these gestalts and the performance of business units from a financial and non-financial perspective. To test the model, 57 matched surveys were collected from North America and the Middle East.
Different clusters of IT governance practices have emerged from this study with distinct yet significant impact on business unit non-financial performance. However, no significant impact on the business unit financial performance was found.
The findings show that implementing different sets of IT governance practices within organizations can result in different levels of performance at the business unit level in terms of business processes, decision making and legal and ethical compliance.