IT Governance Frameworks and COBIT - A Literature Review

IT governance is one of the central areas of IS research. This study examines research on Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology (COBIT), a popular governance framework. COBIT is a comprehensive IT governance framework that provides guidelines to IT managers in managing and governing enterprise IT. This paper compiles and analyses extant research on COBIT. Our findings suggest that researchers have examined COBIT through multiple perspectives and that most papers either concentrate on overall framework development/comparison or certain pockets of interest within COBIT such as security, risk management, systems development, effectiveness and internal control. Our survey also indicates that many of the published papers are in the accounting domain. COBIT’s scope has increased over the years and now it encompasses many of the mainstream IS related areas. Hence, suggestions for future research in IS with regard to COBIT is also articulated in this study.