Exploring the Influence of Belgian and South-African Corporate Governance Codes on IT Governance Transparency

Abstract

Building on prior research on how boards should provide stakeholder transparency by disclosing on how their organizations are governing their IT assets, this paper provides an exploratory insight in the contemporary state of IT governance transparency in Belgian and South African companies. Specifically, the influence of the national corporate governance code on IT governance transparency is investigated by comparing both groups of companies. Our findings show that South African firms tend to be more concerned with IT governance transparency than Belgian firms, given a comparable IT strategic role and ownership structure. This result could be expected, as the South African corporate governance code, King III, contains specific IT (governance)-related guidance, while the Belgian code Lippens does not. Accordingly, the case is made for including more (non-committal) IT (governance)-related guidance in national corporate governance codes.