Innovations in IT Organization Design: Is the Public Sector Really a Special Case?

IT organization design, consisting of IT governance (decision rights) and IT organization structure, is believed to affect organizational performance. This paper describes the IT organization design choices of the 50 U.S. state governments. Significant movement toward greater centralization was observed (particularly for IT services). States appeared to have adopted IT organization design innovations previously pioneered in the private sector, contrary to conventional wisdom founded on well-documented differences between the two sectors. Two commonly used explanations of IT organization design choices were examined for their ability to account for the unexpected findings — contingency and institutional theories. Both explanations were partially successful in explaining the results, but further theoretical development is needed to integrate those theories and more empirical research is needed to advance the field’s knowledge of IT organization design.