Cited by 240Ethics and Social Impacts of AIInformation Technology Governance and StrategyArtificial Intelligence Applications

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 53 of the 54 references it cites were found in a registry or an index; none of the 31 sources its claims cite is checked for support yet.

Toward AI Governance: Identifying Best Practices and Potential Barriers and Outcomes

Open access

Abstract

In recent years artificial intelligence (AI) has been seen as a technology with tremendous potential for enabling companies to gain an operational and competitive advantage. However, despite the use of AI, businesses continue to face challenges and are unable to immediately realize performance gains. Furthermore, firms need to introduce robust AI systems and mitigate AI risks, which emphasizes the importance of creating suitable AI governance practices. This study, explores how AI governance is applied to promote the development of robust AI applications that do not introduce negative effects, based on a comparative case analysis of three firms in the energy sector. The study illustrates which practices are placed to produce knowledge that assists with decision making while at the same time overcoming barriers with recommended actions leading to desired outcomes. The study contributes by exploring the main dimensions relevant to AI’s governance in organizations and by uncovering the practices that underpin them.

Overview

AI snapshot

Written from the paper’s full text.

TL;DR

This comparative case study of three Norwegian energy firms examines how AI governance practices help organizations develop robust AI applications while mitigating risks. It identifies procedural, relational, and structural governance practices, the barriers they address, and outcomes such as cost reduction, flexibility, robustness, and competitive advantage.

Key findings

  • AI governance is organized around procedural, relational, and structural practices: ML pipelines, dashboards, data quality at source, domain experts leading projects, AI education for employees, internal AI teams, unified tools, and weak AI applications focused on specific tasks.
  • Firms faced barriers including difficult AI cloud development, AI development differing from traditional software, lack of data or domain knowledge, employee AI-phobia and misunderstanding of AI capabilities, legal constraints/GDPR, and hard-to-predict costs and effort. Recommended actions included offline recommendation systems, standardized executable components, shared libraries, domain experts leading, AI training, clear data management roles, KPIs, and internal AI teams.
  • Outcomes reported across cases were reducing maintenance costs, increasing flexibility and robustness, improving confidence in results, and gaining competitive advantage. One respondent reported maintenance costs falling from around two million a year to around ten thousand a year; another cited an estimated 20–30% reduction in maintenance costs based on big data.
  • The proposed model links enablers such as existing AI culture and architecture, and inhibitors such as legal constraints, domain challenges, high development costs, and AI-phobia, to desired outcomes including competitive advantage, cost reduction, and dependable AI systems.

Methods

  • Exploratory comparative multi-case study of three Norwegian energy firms (Company A: 200 employees, 180 million dollars turnover; Company B: 530 employees, 260 million dollars; Company C: 100 employees, 23 million dollars).
  • Data collection included 15 semi-structured interviews with business and IT respondents who had key positions, good understanding of AI technologies, and at least one year in their current position and five years relative experience; interviews averaged 55 min, ranged from 25 to 90 min, were conducted via Zoom, recorded, and transcribed verbatim. Secondary data included annual reports, vision and firm structure documents, and internal documents.
  • Analysis used narrative analysis, NVivo, open and axial coding, and cross-case analysis. Initial 200 descriptive codes were reduced to 95 after iteration; three iterations of data analysis were conducted, with independent coding by three authors and triangulation across sources.

Limitations

  • Stated: the data came from companies that do not require extensive use of sensitive data, so there may be bias or an incomplete picture of challenges around relevant practices; data collection was a snapshot in time and may not reflect the complete breadth of practices; all cases are from the same sector, so generalizability may be an issue.
  • Evident: the study is qualitative and based on three firms and 15 interviews, so findings are not statistically generalizable; the paper itself calls for future research with firms from different sectors and for positivist testing of antecedents and effects.

Model-written summary. Check it against the paper before relying on it.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1007/s10796-022-10251-y

Cites

53 of 53 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Nothing to recompute.

Figures

Fig. 1 Proposed model
Fig. 1 Proposed modelCC BY · PubMed Central

Verification

Claims the paper makes

71 Own result · 30 No basis given · 23 Not checked yet · 22 Own interpretation · 17 Own method

Verify all 31 references — free account

Show all 40 claims

  • The quote only partly states this claim. 3
  • Probably not a substantial claim. 75
  • It may state two separate claims as one. 82
123 of 123
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    AI governance is essential to achieve goals such as automating processes, increasing efficiency and reducing costs.

    “To achieve these goals, AI governance is essential.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Input from both business and IT departments is needed to understand how AI governance is designed.

    “as input from both departments is needed in order to understand how AI governance is designed.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    AI value realization is not yet fully understood.

    “Hence, we argue that AI value realization is not yet fully understood and called for and specific governance practices may help in doing.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    AI Governance practices are not consolidated.

    “AI Governance in both the public sector and private sector is a set of practices that still have not been consolidated.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    There is no established framework or theoretical model commonly accepted by industry that describes in detail the overall governance firms should adopt.

    “In addition, there is no established framework or theoretical model that is commonly accepted by the industry and describes in detail the overall governance firms should adopt.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Inadequate empirical data on mechanisms and procedures that firms deploy.

    “The inadequate empirical data on mechanisms and procedures that firms deploy led us to engage this research using an exploratory, comparative case study approach that boosts generalizability while at the same time giving room for extending theory via cross-case analyses (Ramesh et al., 2017).”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The interviewees' accounts accurately reflect the firms' AI governance practices.

    “The interviewees talked about how their company transformed over the years and the necessary steps that were taken in order to expand and maintain a competitive advantage, while minimizing AI risks.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The three case companies are representative of firms in the energy sector or of AI governance best practices, so practices identified in them can be recommended for other companies.

    “In the course of the discussion, we identified a number of patterns that were either similar or different and explored the reasons behind them through open discussion, trying to establish consistency and cohesion, arguing which interpretation seems most reasonable to our goal and how AI Governance is created among these cases and which practices companies should adopt or introduce.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Not all companies have managed to build AI solutions that have had significant organizational effects and resulted in added business value.

    “However, not all companies have managed to build AI solutions that have had significant organizational effects and resulted in added business value.”
9 of 9

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Citations

Cites

Research works printed but not linked: 2

  1. Saunders, C., Benlian, A., Henfridsson, O., & Wiener, M. (2020). IS Control & Governance. M. Quarterly.
  2. Sikolia, D., Biros, D., Mason, M., & Weiser, M. (2013). Trustworthiness of grounded theory methodology research in information systems Proceedings of the Eighth Midwest Association for Information Systems Conference, Illinois.

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Metadata

Authors
Papagiannidis, E., Enholm, I. M., Dremel, C., Mikalef, P., & Krogstie, J.
Affiliations
Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NO)
Corresponding author
Papagiannidis, Emmanouil
Venue
Information Systems Frontiers
Published
2022-04-20
Volume
25
Issue
1
Pages
123-141
ISSN
  • 1387-3326 (ISSN-L)
  • 1572-9419
OpenAlex
W4224250711
Cited by
191
References
54
Citations by year
2026: 82 · 2025: 57 · 2024: 32 · 2023: 16 · 2022: 4
FWCI
31.61
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Information Systems Frontiers (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
  • NORA - Norwegian Open Research Archives (submittedVersion, cc-by)
Funders
NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Ethics and Social Impacts of AI
  • Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Management Information Systems › Information Technology Governance and Strategy
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Artificial Intelligence Applications
Keywords
AI governance, artificial intelligence in organizations, energy sector, AI risk mitigation, best practices, implementation barriers, organizational decision-making

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