MIS Guest Lecture: IT Governance

On December 3, 2020, Professor Frank H.T. Wong, the lecturer of Management Information Systems from #IBMBA program, invited Mr. Richard C.W. Law, a professional accountant, a company secretary, and a corporate governance professional from Hong Kong, to talk about “IT Governance”. Mr. Law, who immigrated to Taiwan from Hong Kong in 2018, received his MBA degree in 1996 and a Master of Science degree in Real Estate in 2006, both from the University of Hong Kong. He is currently pursuing his Ph.D. degree in the College of Management of National Sun Yat-sen University.

In the beginning, Mr. Law compared governance to management. He then introduced the universe of governance, which covers global governance, public governance, corporate governance, financial governance, IT governance, etc. He pinpointed the importance of corporate governance to businesses worldwide and highlighted the principles of good corporate governance as advocated by the OECD and its relevance to IT governance.

Mr. Law explained the definition of IT governance, its essential components, and why IT governance is vital. He also gave examples of issues from within corporations and the external environments demanding good governance practices, such as the US Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the EU General Data Protection Regulation and Privacy Regulations, and the Basel III, etc. 

In his talk, Mr. Law illustrated with examples the crucial decision areas required for the IT governance, namely IT principles, IT architecture, IT infrastructure, Business Application Needs and Prioritization & Investment, and the mechanisms recommended for its implementation. He also introduced several established frameworks for the implementation of IT governance. Finally, he explained the evaluation of IT governance effectiveness by looking into several decision domains.

We want to thank Mr. Richard Law for his informative cross-disciplinary speech on behalf of the IBMBA program. It is our great hope that every student in this course will gain valuable knowledge from Mr. Law’s lecture.