From Shadow IT to Business-managed IT: a qualitative comparative analysis to determine configurations for successful management of IT by business entities

Abstract

Shadow IT describes covert/hidden IT systems that are managed by business entities themselves. Additionally, there are also overt forms in practice, so-called Businessmanaged IT, which share most of the characteristics of Shadow IT. To better understand this phenomenon, we interviewed 29 executive IT managers about positive and negative cases of Shadow IT and Business-managed IT. By applying qualitative comparative analysis (QCA), we derived four conditions that characterize these cases: Aligned, local, simple, and volatile. The results show that there are three sufficient configurations of conditions that lead to a positive outcome; one of them even encompasses Shadow IT. The most important solution indicates that IT systems managed by business entities are viewed as being positive if they are aligned with the IT department and limited to local requirements. This allows to balance local responsiveness to changing requirements and global standardization. In contrast, IT systems that are not aligned and permanent (and either organization-wide or simple) are consistently considered as negative. Our study is the first empirical quantitativequalitative study to shed light on the success and failure of Shadow IT and Businessmanaged IT.

Factors Influencing Business IT Alignment

“…This problem is consistent with the study related to Agile budgeting [45] with a proposed model to apply multi-level budgeting where the budget could be moved between different levels. The problem of budget allocation in the context of Agile projects was also stressed in previous studies [46] where conventional management approaches and their control were not compatible with Agile ways of working. Participants suggested that with growth of the cloud, software on-line renting and different platforms, so called "shadow IT" is becoming an area where IT-related spending is not controlled by IT departments nor fully managed by business.…”

Potential ethical problems in the creation of open educational resources through virtual spaces in academia

“…In the South African context, several social media virtual platforms are used, such as ResearchGate, Google Scholar, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, WhatsApp, Telegram, LinkedIn, and many others. Besides social media with the elements of entertainment, many academics prefer Wikipedia and Wikimedia, where more than 1.4 billion individuals have created OER available on these platforms ( Hilchey, 2021 ), this cannot be denied because it is still part of open access.Whereas other institutions and academics rely on shadow IT to cater to OER shadow, IT refers to ICT facilities that are not officialised by the central IT department of an organisation ( Kopper et al., 2020 ). The study on the domestication of OER by academics in a South African institution noted shadow IT as a contribution to OER practices ( Mncube, 2022 ).…”

Von Schatten-IT zu Business-managed IT: Fachbereichs-IT gezielt gestalten

“…wenn sie nicht abgestimmt -das heißt Schatten-IT ist -und für langfristige Prozesse genutzt wird [7].…”

“…So sollte sich die IT-Organisation um Querschnittsfunktionen kümmern, um kontrollierte Bedingungen und Skaleneffekte zu schaffen. Dies beinhaltet beispielsweise die Bereitstellung der Infrastruktur (einschließlich Plattformen, zum Beispiel Low-Code-Plattformen), die Systemintegration (insbesondere mit den Kernsystemen), das Vertrags-und Lieferantenmanagement (zum Beispiel Cloud-Verträge), das Management der Sicherheit (Bereitstellung von Fachwissen und Überprüfung) und die Schaffung von Architekturstandards (Validierung von Systemdesigns) [7,9,10]. Fachbereiche können hingegen -im Rahmen von vorgegebenen Standards und Richtlinien -lokale Lösungen aufbauen und in multidisziplinären Teams Business-managed IT entwickeln.…”

“…(1) eine Self-Service-Integrationsplattform, die es den Fachbereichen und Anwendern ermöglicht, ihre eigenen Anwendungen zu integrieren und kontrollierten Zugriff auf Daten anderer Systeme zu haben, (2) ein Auftragsmanagementsystem mit mehreren Hundert Benutzern, das von einer Arbeitsgruppe des Fachbereichs (weiter)entwickelt wird, (3) die eigenständige Entwicklung des Web-Shop-Systems durch die E-Commerce-Abteilung, welches heute mehr als 90 % des Auftragsvolumens verarbeitet (2,7 Mrd. € und bis zu zehn Aufträge pro Sekunde) und (4) ein Eventmanagementsystem, welches die Marketingabteilung selbstständig beschafft hat und betreibt, um die Teilnehmerdaten während einer Messe zu verwalten und diese in das Customer-Relationship-Management-System des Unternehmens zu übertragen [5].…”