Data Governance Strategies in Information Systems
Summary
As data volumes expand and organisations across sectors rely increasingly on digital assets, robust data governance strategies have emerged as vital mechanisms to ensure that information systems operate with integrity, efficiency and accountability. Data governance encompasses the policies, processes and roles that define how data is acquired, stored, shared and maintained. At its core, effective governance aligns data management activities with business objectives, mitigates risk by enforcing security and privacy standards, and enhances data quality and interoperability. Key components include the establishment of stewardship roles, clear decision-making frameworks and performance metrics to monitor compliance and drive continuous improvement. Technical considerations—such as metadata management, data architecture and lifecycle controls—are balanced with organisational imperatives, including stakeholder engagement, regulatory compliance and ethical guidelines. The interplay of these elements underpins the capacity of organisations to harness data as a strategic asset, enabling innovation, operational resilience and trust in digital ecosystems.
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Data Governance Strategies in Information Systems publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in data governance strategies in information systems across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Data governance: A framework of policies, procedures and roles that ensures the effective management, quality, security and compliance of organisational data assets.
Data stewardship: The responsibility assigned to individuals or teams for overseeing data integrity, coordinating governance activities and liaising with stakeholders.
Taxonomy: A structured classification system that organises concepts or decision domains into categories to guide consistent governance practices.
Ontology: A formal representation of knowledge within a domain, defining entities, relationships and rules to support semantic interoperability and automated reasoning.
Governance maturity model: A staged assessment tool that evaluates an organisation’s governance capabilities across dimensions such as people, processes, data and technology to guide strategic improvement.
References
- A taxonomy of data governance decision domains in data marketplaces. Electronic Markets (2023).
- Driving Excellence in Official Statistics: Unleashing the Potential of Comprehensive Digital Data Governance. Big Data and Cognitive Computing (2023).
- Big Data Governance Challenges Arising From Data Generated by Intelligent Systems Technologies: A Systematic Literature Review. IEEE Access (2025).
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