IT portfolio decision-making in local governments: Rationality, politics, intuition and coincidences

Jeppe Agger Nielsen, Keld Pedersen

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

25 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

IT project portfolio management (IT PPM) has evolved into a significant area of research interest, but we know little about IT PPM practices in public sector organizations. Therefore this article investigates decision-making processes in the IT PPM practices of local governments, and discusses how these practices match the normative advice proposed by the IT PPMliterature.We rely on decision-making theories togetherwith case-studies of four Danish local governments.We find that politics, intuition and coincidence play a crucial role in IT PPM decisionmaking, while technical rationality (as proposed by the IT PPM literature) plays a minor role. Our account also reveals how the decision-making practices create IT portfolio problems and in some aspects is considered to
have a negative impact on the outcome of e-government investments. Our analysis and previous research into decision-making allows us to argue that implementing textbook-IT PPM is difficult because it relies on decision-making ideals that are incompatiblewith organizational contexts and individual behavior in these organizations. Instead of radically changing decision-making styles, the organizations might be better off improving IT PPM practice within the boundaries of their existing decision-making styles, and the IT PPM literature might
improve support for practitioners by incorporating other decision-making styles besides technical rationality.
Original languageEnglish
JournalGovernment Information Quarterly
Volume31
Issue number3
Pages (from-to)411–420
Number of pages12
ISSN0740-624X
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2014

Keywords

  • E-government
  • IT portfolio management
  • Decision-making
  • Local Government
  • Case study

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