Grounding data governance motivations: a review of the literature

ABSTRACT The purpose of this review paper is to understand why organisations choose to implement data governance (DG) programmes. An understanding of these motivations will facilitate assessing the effectiveness of DG programmes. A search of the literature returned 628 publications for examination; of these 50 were deemed to be relevant to the research, and were selected for analysis and coding using a grounded theory approach. Our analysis found 115 organisational motivations for implementing DG, grouped into 23 categories. We use the Khatri and Brown framework to organise these categories across their five decision domains. The motivations are predominantly associated with operations and technology. This presents a challenge for organisations, where an over-focus on technology could lessen the business imperative. DG needs to be much more than an operational plan for managing the data asset. DG requires a holistic approach to succeed which suggests that all decision domains are considered adequately.