Adoption and benefits of standardized IT management processes : IT executives ́ perceptions of ITIL and CobiT

The aim of this research is to understand how IT executives of different countries implement and perceive IT operational process improvement frameworks. We examine if IT operational frameworks, such as ITIL and CobiT, have an effect on the IT organization and on the relations between the IT organization and the business. While the implementation of such frameworks has been on the rise, limited research sets out to understand how the benefits of implementation evolve as organizations implement these frameworks. To answer this, two surveys were conducted to understand the perception of IT executives, one focusing on ITIL and the other on CobiT. Over 680 survey responses were collected and analysed. A total of 490 responses were received from companies that had implemented ITIL. We are interested in knowing the perceived benefits realized due to the ITIL implementation, the perceived maturity of the business-IT alignment, and the maturity of the ITIL processes implemented. Responses were used to compare how the benefits, challenges and maturity of the business-it alignment would evolve as the implementation maturity increases. Additional to these, further data was gathered from Australia and DACH (Austria, Germany and Switzerland) countries. A study is conducted to compare companies using ITIL in Australia, DACH countries, United Kingdom and United States, and shows that inter-organisational factors such as country, size and industry sector contribute to the variation in adoption of ITSM. Additionally, insights provide evidence that organizations implementing ITIL are concentrating on operational processes more than on tactical and strategical processes. Findings from this thesis also show that as the overall maturity of the ITIL implementation increases, so do the number of perceived realized benefits ...