IT governance (ITG) is crucial in achieving IT strategic alignment, but many organizations find this to be an elusive goal. We thus expand ITG into two components: ITG mechanisms and ITG principles. We propose that beyond the mere option of ITG mechanisms, organizations must fully embrace the broader “spirit” of ITG, which occurs when an organization is committed to ITG principles coupled with top leadership support. To test our theorization, we first developed and validated two new measures. We used the ITG framework of COBIT to create a measure of commitment to COBIT principles (CCP), and we found that CCP fully mediates ITG mechanisms’ relationship with strategic alignment. We thus illuminate a missing link between adopting ITG mechanisms and achieving strategic alignment by demonstrating the need to focus on ITG principles. We show that top leadership support for IT, including support at the board level, not only enhances CCP but also directly contributes to improved strategic alignment. Our study establishes that adopting ITG mechanisms is necessary but insufficient for achieving strategic alignment. Effective organizations go beyond implementing isolated ITG mechanisms; they fully embrace integrated COBIT-based principles, guided by a strong infusion of top leadership support, including board-level support.

The rise of electronic markets (EM) and e-commerce came with the promise of disintermediation. Yet, from aggregators to authenticators, the online landscape today is scattered with intermediaries such as EBay and Verisign, aiming to streamline e-commerce transactions and building consumer trust in EM. The central theme of this paper is to understand the contextual factors that lead to consumers’ need to trust intermediaries. In developing our arguments, the paper synthesizes perspectives from information economics, transaction cost economics, and literature on institution-based trust to develop the EM-Trust Framework. Drawing from information economics, the paper contends that EM embody certain inefficiencies, which in turn contribute towards heightening consumer uncertainty, especially under conditions of high information specificity. Heightened consumer uncertainty subsequently reduces consumer trust in EM. It is only in the face of uncertainty and a loss of trust in EM that consumers transfer their need to trust in intermediaries. However, the transference of trust is complete only if agency costs from intermediation lie within consumer thresholds. A mini-case of online mortgage marketplaces is used to illustrate the EM-Trust Framework, thus creating threads for more insightful investigations in the future.