IT Governance in Public and Private Sector Organisations: Examining the Differences and Defining Future Research Directions

Government agencies constitute a significant component of economic activity in most countries. Like their private sector counterparts, many public sector agencies are struggling to cope with reduced or inadequate IT budgets and are continuously looking for ways to extract maximum value from IT resources. While there are many similarities between public and private sector organisations, there are inherent differences that suggest that a one size fits all approach to IT Governance may not apply in all circumstances. However, despite these differences, there exists a paucity of IT Governance research that distinguishes between the different organisational characteristics found in private and public sector organisations. This paper briefly examines the systemic differences between public and private sector organisations so as to identify the unique IT Governance issues that might arise, and that future research should address.