Towards the development of a COBIT 5-driven IT audit framework
type: CreativeWork
description: In recent years, given the increased investments in Information Technology (IT), and its pervasive usage in business environment, the need to ensure that IT decisions are in the interest of shareholders led practitioners and researchers to focus on Enterprise Governance of IT (EGIT). EGIT involves implementing mechanisms that ensure that IT risks are duly mitigated, and that the IT investments are yielding the expected returns for enterprise owners. For the mechanisms to work as intended, there is the need for regular auditing; however, past literature and practitioner reports have confirmed that auditors do not audit governance mechanisms to the expectation of shareholders. Within the Ghanaian Financial services sector, failures in EGIT resulted in the collapse of several organisations which made stakeholders question the role played by auditors. The purpose of this study was to examine EGIT from the perspective of the auditor, develop an audit framework based on COBIT 5 and understand how auditors can be 'critical partners’ to ensure EGIT effectiveness. To provide a better understanding of the EGIT phenomenon, a theoretical framework based on the integration of six theoretical perspectives was presented to provide a holistic view of EGIT and how auditors can add value. The theoretical framework argued in line with organisational theorists that to achieve positive outcomes, governance mechanisms must be implemented in a coherent whole and analysed as a configuration. As such the study adopted the configurational theory to analyse the coherence of the governance mechanisms. Based on the theoretical framework and the configurational theory, a conceptual framework was developed to guide the research. The thesis proposed that the greater the level of coherence among the governance mechanisms, the higher the level of EGIT effectiveness, and that the audit of EGIT will improve the maturity of the governance mechanisms and its coherence. The pragmatic philosophic stance w…
abstract: In recent years, given the increased investments in Information Technology (IT), and its pervasive usage in business environment, the need to ensure that IT decisions are in the interest of shareholders led practitioners and researchers to focus on Enterprise Governance of IT (EGIT). EGIT involves implementing mechanisms that ensure that IT risks are duly mitigated, and that the IT investments are yielding the expected returns for enterprise owners. For the mechanisms to work as intended, there is the need for regular auditing; however, past literature and practitioner reports have confirmed that auditors do not audit governance mechanisms to the expectation of shareholders. Within the Ghanaian Financial services sector, failures in EGIT resulted in the collapse of several organisations which made stakeholders question the role played by auditors. The purpose of this study was to examine EGIT from the perspective of the auditor, develop an audit framework based on COBIT 5 and understand how auditors can be 'critical partners’ to ensure EGIT effectiveness. To provide a better understanding of the EGIT phenomenon, a theoretical framework based on the integration of six theoretical perspectives was presented to provide a holistic view of EGIT and how auditors can add value. The theoretical framework argued in line with organisational theorists that to achieve positive outcomes, governance mechanisms must be implemented in a coherent whole and analysed as a configuration. As such the study adopted the configurational theory to analyse the coherence of the governance mechanisms. Based on the theoretical framework and the configurational theory, a conceptual framework was developed to guide the research. The thesis proposed that the greater the level of coherence among the governance mechanisms, the higher the level of EGIT effectiveness, and that the audit of EGIT will improve the maturity of the governance mechanisms and its coherence. The pragmatic philosophic stance w…
author: Asmah, Alexander Ekow
keywords: information system
date published: 2019
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:23:19Z
provider: University of Cape Town
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Department of Information Systems

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/11427/31541