Service-Oriented Architecture Governance for the Services Driven Enterprise

1.2. INTRODUCTION TO GOVERNANCE

SOA governance, information technology (IT) governance, and corporate governance are currently hot industry buzzwords. But what is SOA governance really? What is governance in the general sense? Governance is a simple concept to understand, yet it is made complex by vendors, management consultants, and opportunists who see the increasing emphasis on governance as a chance to augment or enhance their power base in an organization. However, governance, be it IT, SOA, or corporate, does not have to be that complicated.

Governance is the process of making correct and appropriate decisions on behalf of the stakeholders of those decisions or choices. In its corporate application, governance is the process of ensuring the best interests of a company's or organization's stakeholders are met through all corporate decisions, from strategy through execution. In its IT application, governance focuses on appropriate oversight and stakeholder representation for IT spending and overall IT management.

Corporate governance has become critically important as a result of corporate accounting scandals, stock option backdating and related corporate mismanagement episodes. Corporate governance is essential to apply oversight and balanced stakeholder representation for all corporate decisions relating to hiring and retaining key executives, executive compensation, strategic direction and execution. Corporate governance in publicly traded companies is the process by which ...