Abstract
This section of the book presents the second dimension of the AGG model (the governance realm). It discusses why it is necessary to understand the concept of governance in a general sense, as well as in the corporate and in the information technology senses. If this book argues that an enterprise's observable architectural characteristics determine its governance issues, and that the governance agenda of the enterprise determines its measurable growth conditions, then it is imperative that the concept of governance should be specified. This chapter deals with the concept of governance in a general sense, highlighting those aspects that are necessary for a proper understanding of the operation of market architectures, as well as those aspects related to governance at the enterprise level. The chapter also discusses a special case of governance, the concept of “bazaar governance,” a form of governance structure that has emerged with the growth of the open source movement for the development of software production.
Top2. Background
Governance is neither a simple nor a definite concept. By looking at ‘The Oxford Handbook of Governance’, edited by David Levi-Faur in 2012, one can see from this handbook (which is made up of nine parts constituted by fifty-two different chapters covering a whole range of issues surrounding the concept of governance) the complexity of such a subject matter.
This handbook offers a broad overview of the governance literature: it provides theoretical approaches aimed at situating the study of governance within a broad conceptual context and at extending its core agenda; analyzes governance as a reform of the state; covers actors of governance, their strategies and their styles; examines economic governance, its challenges, forms, and causes; deals with the governance of risk and of science and technology; moves on to issues of democratic governance, which demonstrate that governance implies a change in the understanding of democracy; and covers the transnational arena, dealing first with the European Union, and second with issues of global governance.