A model for data management and governance practices for everyday business

Abstract

Managing data in the right way to harness the significant values of organizational data and the ability to use the latest digital tools creates valuable opportunities for growing organizations to manage their operations and resources effectively. In the context of data governance, data ownership and quality are often widely discussed topics and implementing data governance models in specific organizational environments faces different challenges. We contribute to the existing literature by providing a comprehensive explanation of the steps for implementing a data organizational structure in a data governance model, focusing on data ownership and stewardship and enhancing the usability of the overall governance model. The current literature provides the theoretical background of general data governance design steps, and we addressed the research gap with practical implementation and employed intervention refinement cycles to improve the proposed solution. We utilized the action design research (ADR) approach to address the class of the problem. The paper highlights the implementation and evaluation steps following the ADR process to create an IT artifact that provides data management solutions and how it helps to enhance operational efficiency. Our evaluations highlight that proposed data governance practices support improved data quality and eventually lead to improved decision-making in the case organization while stressing the impact of clearly defined data ownership, roles and responsibilities on data governance.