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Business units are increasingly able to fuel the transformation that digitalization demands of organizations. Thereby, they implement Shadow IT (SIT) to create flexible and innovative solutions. However, the individual implementation of SIT leads to high complexities and redundancies. Integration suggests itself to meet these challenges but can also eliminate the described benefits. In this emergent research, we develop propositions for a conceptual decision framework, that balances the benefits and drawbacks of an integration of SIT using a literature review as well as a multiple-case study. We thereby integrate the perspective of the overall organization as well as the specific business unit. We then pose six propositions regarding SIT integration that will serve to evaluate our conceptual framework in future research.
Shadow information technology systems (SITS) coexist with formal enterprise systems in organisations. SITS pose risks but also increase flexibility of business units. Practice shows that SITS emerge, despite that Enterprise Architecture Management (EAM) aims at controling all IT systems in an organization. Studies acknowledge this problem in general. However, they neither show the specific influencing areas of SITS nor provide approaches to address them. To close this gap, we use a literature review to analyse examples of practical SITS and their interference with EAM concerns. Thus, we find that they hinder especially transparency, reduction of EA complexity and governance. Research has focused on achieving transparency, governing the evolution of the EA but lacks strategies for reducing complexity. This study contributes to research and practice by uncovering the main influencing areas of SITS on EAM, as well as by laying a foundation for future research on this topic.
Der Begriff Schatten-IT beschreibt Systeme, die außerhalb des Verantwortungsbereiches der IT durch die Fachabteilung eigenständig entwickelt und betrieben werden. Obwohl dieses Phänomen weit verbreitet ist, blieb diese Schatten-IT in Wissenschaft und in Praxis lange unbeachtet. Seit einiger Zeit ist eine verstärkte Auseinandersetzung mit dem Phänomen erkennbar. Jedoch gibt es bisher nur wenige empirisch gestützte Erkenntnisse über die Schatten-IT. Diese Lücke wird in dem vorliegenden Beitrag angegangen. Auf Basis von vier Fallstudien werden die Verbreitung, Verwendung und die Qualität der Schatten-IT ermittelt. Dabei zeigt sich, dass die Schatten-IT mit durchaus erheblichen Risiken verbunden sein kann. Demgegenüber bleibt die Qualität jedoch merklich zurück. Erkennbar ist dabei auch, dass die Schatten-IT nicht im Blickfeld der Kontrollsysteme der Unternehmen erscheint. Durch Maßnahmen wie die Steigerung der Awareness der Schatten-IT im Unternehmen sowie eine Entwicklung der Schatten-IT hin zu einer gesteuerten Fachbereichs-IT lassen sich die Risiken wirksam reduzieren. Zudem sind die Kontrollsysteme der Unternehmen so anzupassen, dass auch die Schatten-IT in diesen sichtbar wird.
Organizations deploy a plethora of information technology (IT) systems. Various types of enterprise systems (ES) may coexist with the shadow IT systems (SITS) implemented by individual business units without the involvement of the IT department. The associated redundancy of SITS and ES suggests their integration. After integration, however, organization may find it challenging to retain the flexibility and innovation that the development of SITS offers the business. In this study, we conduct a literature review on IT systems integration. This review and the specific characteristics of SITS then serve to define SITS integration, derive guidelines for the integration decision, the phases preceding and following integration, and the integration process itself. SITS and ES integration can profit from existing knowledge of integration benefits, costs, and of the available technologies. Our study offers IT decision makers an insight into the specifics of SITS integration, and provides a basis for future SITS research.
The IT unit is not the only provider of information technology (IT) used in business processes. Aiming for increased performance, many business workgroups autonomously implement IT resources not covered by their organizational IT service management. This is called shadow IT. Risks and inefficiencies associated with this phenomenon challenge organizations. Organizations need to decide how to deal with identified shadow IT and if the business or the IT unit should be responsible for corresponding tasks and components. This study proposes design principles for a method to control identified shadow IT following action design research in four organizational settings. The procedure results in an allocation of IT task responsibilities between the business workgroups and the IT unit following risk considerations and transaction cost economics, leading to an IT service governance. This contributes to governance research regarding adaptive and efficient arrangements with reduced risks for business-located IT activities.
Research on Shadow IT is facing a conceptual dilemma in cases where previously "covert" systems developed by business entities (individual users, business workgroups, or business units) are integrated in the organizational IT management. These systems become visible, are therefore not "in the shadows" anymore, and subsequently do not fit to existing definitions of Shadow IT. Practice shows that some information systems share characteristics of Shadow IT, but are created openly in alignment with the IT department. This paper therefore proposes the term "Business-managed IT" to describe "overt" information systems developed or managed by business entities. We distinguish Business-managed IT from Shadow IT by illustrating case vignettes. Accordingly, our contribution is to suggest a concept and its delineation against other concepts. In this way, IS researchers interested in IT originated from or maintained by business entities can construct theories with a wider scope of application that are at the same time more specific to practical problems. In addition, value-laden terminology is complemented by a vocabulary that values potentially innovative developments by business entities more adequately. From a practical point of view, the distinction can be used to discuss the distribution of task responsibilities for information systems.