INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY GOVERNANCE IN SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES - A SYSTEMATIC MAPPING

Abstract Information Technology (IT) governance in small and medium-sized businesses is a subject that still requires more effort. Many of the studies that deal with this subject refer to large companies. IT governance structures, originally developed for the context of large enterprises such as COBIT, ISO/IEC 35800 or ITIL, when applied to the context of small and medium enterprises, lead to undesirable results and failures in the deployment process. The objective of this work was to perform a systematic mapping on IT governance in small and medium enterprises between 2007 and 2017. Systematic mapping studies are useful for categorizing and summarizing the existing information concerning a research question in an unbiased manner. Thus, from an initial set of 63 papers, a total of 17 research papers were selected for the mapping study. The results obtained allowed us to reach conclusions concerning the state-of-the-art of IT governance mechanisms, theories applied in the context and the consequences of IT governance. From the results of this study it was possible to perceive the low use of relational mechanisms of IT governance in the studied context, the constant need to adapt frameworks such as COBIT and ITIL, so that they can adapt to the reality of SMEs, the wide variety of theoretical approaches and the importance, for SMEs, of the concept of IT value for the business.

摘要 中小企业的信息技术（IT）治理仍是一个亟待深化研究的课题。现有相关研究多聚焦于大型企业。最初针对大型企业场景研发的IT治理框架，如COBIT、ISO/IEC 35800及ITIL，在应用于中小企业场景时，往往难以取得理想效果，甚至在部署过程中出现失败。本研究旨在对2007年至2017年间有关中小企业IT治理的文献开展系统性映射分析。系统性映射研究有助于以客观中立的方式，对特定研究问题相关的现有文献进行分类与归纳总结。据此，本研究从初始的63篇文献中筛选出17篇研究论文用于本次映射分析。通过本次研究得到的结果，我们得以总结出当前IT治理机制的研究现状、该场景下应用的相关理论以及IT治理所产生的影响等结论。研究结果显示，在所分析的场景中，IT治理关系型机制的应用程度偏低；诸如COBIT与ITIL等框架仍需持续适配，以贴合中小企业的实际运营场景；当前存在多样化的理论研究路径；且对于中小企业而言，信息技术业务价值理念的重要性不言而喻。