A survey on mechanisms influencing Effective Information technology (IT) governance in Iranian banking industry

Effective IT governance guarantees alignment of IT with business in order to maximize benefits، achieving organizational goals and optimal use of IT resources. So in industries such as banking industry due to the dependency of their activities on IT، Good IT governance is no longer a “nice to have”، it is a “must have”. To achieve effective IT governance، an organization needs to employ well-designed، well-understood، and transparent governance mechanisms. So a complete list of 30 IT governance mechanisms categorized in 3 groups: decision making structures، alignment processes and relational mechanisms were synthesized through the literature review and using the Qualitative Meta-Synthesis Methodology. In the next step، a group of domain experts were requested to modify the list to the specific characteristics of Iranian banking industry and as a final outcome، a list of 26 mechanisms for effective IT governance in Iranian banking industry was obtained. Then، designed and validated questionnaire of field studies was distributed among IT managers of 25 banks. The collected data were analyzed via statistical tests and results indicated 12 mechanisms are strongly deployed among which the existence of an IT strategy committee، IT project steering committee، IT project tracking (time and budget control) and Motivation and incentive to follow the principles of IT governance have positive impact on effective IT governance in Iranian banking industry.