A relação entre o poder intraorganizacional e a efetividade de mecanismos de governança de TI : um estudo de caso em uma organização pública do Rio Grande do Sul

Abstract

Information Technology Governance (ITG) has become an important ally of top management to transform Information Technology (IT) into perennial results for organizations. The adoption and functioning of ITG in the public sector demand a structure composed of mechanisms optimized according to the particularities of each organization. In this sector, ITG is even more important because it provides the alignment between IT investments and the public interest. Contingency factors can alter the balance of power among subunits of an organization. From this perspective, both external and internal factors have the ability to influence various aspects of organizational management, including the strategic area. One of the ITG mechanisms, the IT Strategic Committee (CETI), has as its main function to advise the organization's senior management and the board of executives about IT strategy. The study had as its research question to analyze how occurs the influence of the intraorganizational power in the effectiveness of the ITG mechanism, IT Strategic Committee in a public organization. The Strategic Contingencies' Theory of Intraorganizational Power of Hickson et al. (1971) was adopted as a theoretical lens and the general objective was to analyze the influence of intra-organizational power on the effectiveness of the ITG mechanism, IT Strategic Committee (CETI) in the context of the executive power of a public organization. The research was carried out as a cross-section study and the method adopted was a single case study. The data collection phase occurred during four months of CETI meeting’s observations and Focal Groups in which field notes and audio recordings were recorded. In the phase of data analysis, the material was submitted to content analysis and codified according to a priori categories based on the contingent factors of intraorganizational power and the principles and objectives of the organization's ICT policy. The results indicated that intra-organizational power can act as a moderator in the relation of dimensions: "respect for principles" and "attending the objectives" of IT policy, with social alignment in IT (REICH, 2000). Therefore, it was proposed an extension of Hickson et al. (1971) model and their respective hypotheses to be tested quantitatively. Finally, suggestions were made for future research to extend the study to the other structures of IT governance of the organization and to verify if there are differences in the Influence of intraorganizational power between different hierarchical levels.