Digital governance is the practice by which an organisation establishes rules and guidelines relating to their use of digital tools and platforms, ensure compliance, and manage any associated risks efficiently.
Governance choices have an enormous effect on interoperability costs for developers and exchange participants (Newlands, 2021). Achieve successful implementation requires careful design and understanding of responsibilities.
1. Strategy
Digital governance enables organizations to enjoy the advantages of efficiency, consistency and transparency while simultaneously minimizing costs. Furthermore, it provides a structure for assigning responsibility and accountability within an organization.
An organizational digital governance framework defines who has authority for making decisions and who is accountable for drafting specific parts of its digital strategy, policies and standards. However, this doesn’t address how such decisions will actually be implemented – that’s up to individuals themselves to decide.
Governance decisions take on new strategic significance in an age when platforms have become strategic differentiators. Governance designers face novel demands in this environment, such as an increasing concern that exchange participants might employ platform exit strategies in response to controversial governance policies (Jones 1983; Leiblein 2003) which may reduce network value and compromise its performance.
2. Policy
Digital governance entails creating policies and guidelines to govern an organization’s online activities, from websites and social media accounts to cloud storage, data ownership and e-commerce tools.
Compliance requirements for an organization’s digital governance framework will depend on its industry and context; healthcare organizations, for instance, must implement stringent privacy and cybersecurity measures. Leaders should educate both their board and staff members about digital governance policies to ensure compliance.
Automated governance can be complex and nuanced, raising many complex and nuanced issues that must be considered when developing an effective digital governance plan. Some may argue that such governance could result in surveillance-induced loss of autonomy; voicelessness due to quasi-monopolistic digital incumbents; dependence on specific services with high switching costs (Santana & Albareda 2023); keeping up-to-date with complex legislation is another essential aspect of developing effective digital governance plans.
3. Training
This course explores how digital governance is revolutionizing government services and improving citizens’ experience, while equipping you with tools for adopting and implementing an effective information governance framework in your organisation.
Learn the essential principles of information governance such as accountability, integrity and compliance as well as how to create an information strategy tailored to meet the business needs and meet regulatory compliance.
As soon as you finish this course, you will be able to apply what you have learned through a practical case study on Facebook. This will put your knowledge of digital governance policies to the test in terms of maintaining competition while protecting data privacy for users. Klarna offers flexible payment plan options during checkout – either way is convenient.
4. Monitoring
Digital governance can be an arduous task. Therefore, it is crucial that policies and their impact on an organization’s overall operations are regularly evaluated and monitored.
To achieve this goal, an effective monitoring process that encompasses data collection, evaluation and reporting must be implemented alongside an established governance framework.
Digital governance refers to an organization-wide policy framework that covers all of your company’s online properties – websites, subsites, social media accounts, apps and intranet portals – as a whole. A single policy framework reduces confusion and ensures all employees work within similar parameters while making it easier to track and understand digital governance policies as technology changes. Having such training for all board members is also essential.
5. Enforcement
Digital governance involves ongoing monitoring and enforcement activities. These can include training and ongoing education. Monitoring also involves testing the effectiveness of your security measures – for instance, board management software should be secure enough to prevent data breaches; encourage board members to communicate through these secure channels instead of email or other less reliable tools.
Additionally, responsibilities must be clearly established. For instance, in a large digital network with anonymous participants who engage in illegal activities or biased decision-making processes, who is accountable?