Two major publications stress the importance of governance - Cobit

1. The Report of the Committee on the Financial Aspects of Corporate
Governance (Cadbury Report, 1992) focused global thinking on the
issue of governance. While the report is aimed at financial reporting and
auditing, it alludes to wider concepts of governance. It recommends
openness, integrity and accountability to improve standards of corporate
behaviour, strengthening controls over enterprises and their public
accountability while retaining the essential spirit of the enterprise. It
identifies various board governance responsibilities, such as setting
strategic aims, providing leadership, supervising management and
reporting to shareholders on their stewardship.
In practice, that stewardship is extending to IT as boards investigate the
depth of their enterprise’s reliance on IT.
2. The Bank for International Settlements (BIS), in Enhancing Corporate
Governance in Banking Organisations (1999), defines governance
arrangements as encompassing the set of relationships between the
entity’s management and its governing body, its owners and its other
stakeholders and providing the structure through which:
• The entity’s overall objectives are set.
• The method of attaining those objectives is outlined.
• The way that performance will be monitored is described.