A Morphology of the Organisation of Data Governance

Both information systems (IS) researchers and practitioners consider data governance as a promisingapproach for companies to improve and maintain the quality of corporate data, which is seen ascritical for being able to meet strategic business requirements, such as compliance or integratedcustomer management. Both sides agree that data governance primarily is a matter of organisation.However, hardly any scientific results have been produced so far indicating what actually has to beorganised by data governance, and what data governance may look like. The paper aims at closingthis gap by developing a morphology of data governance organisation on the basis of acomprehensive analysis of the state of the art both in science and in practice. Epistemologically, themorphology represents an analytic theory, as it serves for structuring the research topic of datagovernance, which is still quite unexplored. Six mini case studies are used to evaluate the morphologyby means of empirical data. Providing a foundation for further research, the morphology contributesto the advancement of the scientific body of knowledge. At the same time, it is beneficial topractitioners, as companies may use it as a guideline when organising data governance.