Owing to increasing regulatory pressure and the need for aligned information technology (IT) decisions at the interface of business and IT, IT governance (ITG) has become important in both academia and practice. However, knowledge of integrating the determinants and consequences of ITG success remains scarce. Although some studies investigate individual aspects of ITG success and its impact, none combine these factors into a comprehensive and integrated model that would lead to a more complete understanding of the ITG concept. To address this gap, our research aims at understanding what factors influence and result from successful ITG, and at determining how they can be translated into a model to explain ITG success and the impact thereof. Therefore, we conducted interviews with 28 IT decision makers in 19 multinational organizations headquartered in Europe. Our study synthesizes the fragmented previous research, provides new empirical insights gathered on the basis of a clear ITG conceptualization, and suggests three innovative constructs heretofore not related to ITG. Moreover, we elucidate in a holistic model the factors that make ITG successful, how ITG contributes to an IT organization's success, and how it eventually unfolds throughout the overall organization. The resulting model allows organizational decision makers to develop an effective ITG implementation and to explain the implications of successful ITG, thus providing a justification for the respective investments.
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