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Top1. Introduction
Information systems are considered as precious and strategic (Silva & Hirschheim, 2007) and are associated in a significant way to organizational performance (Santhanam & Hartono, 2003). Moreover, some empirical research (Weilll, 2004) have shown the link between the effectiveness of IT governance (ITG) and organizational performance, which gives the ITG a particular importance in the corporate governance with which it is considerably overlapped ((Willson & Pollard, 2009), (Wilkin & Chenhall, 2010)). Furthermore, (De Haes, Van Grembergen and Debreceny (2013) and Van Grembergen & De Haes (2009) consider that the Enterprise governance of IT is an integral part of enterprise governance. They highlighted that it addresses the definition and implementation of processes, structures, and relational mechanisms in the organization that enable the board and senior business and IT management to execute their responsibilities in support of risk and value management ((De Haes, Van Grembergen and Debreceny, 2013), (Van Grembergen & De Haes, 2009)). As a matter of fact, good ITG is based on the principles of corporate governance to manage and use IS as a leverage to achieve the objectives of the company's performance (Weilll, 2004).
The importance of ITG has driven practitioners and researchers in a continuous struggle to determine what ITG is, who is responsible for ITG in research and in practice, and how ITG can be recognized, implemented and managed over time (Jacobson, 2009). This confusion is due to the fact that ITG is a transversal phenomenon in research disciplines and in organizations’ functions.
This explains the diversity of viewpoints and aspects under which the ITG has been considered and studied as well as by researchers as by practitioners. Nevertheless, these studies were done in different ways and few studies have been made considering ITG in its entirety, which is a significant lack in ITG research. As a matter of fact, efficient and effective implementation of governance and management of enterprise IT requires a holistic approach (De Haes, Van Grembergen and Debreceny, 2013). This research is therefore designed to address the question of the pertinence and the feasibility of a unifying holistic approach of ITG.
By enrolling our research in the rigorous percepts of Design Research ((Hevner, 2007), (Hevner & al, 2004)), we present in this paper a holistic approach of ITG, GISUF (Governance of Information Systems Unified Framework) that we implemented within in a large European Telecommunication Operator in a two years in-depth case study (Yin, 2009).