The study assesses the C-suite's IT governance priorities and actions executives have taken related to IT governance and is based on 695 interviews with CEO / CIO-level executives in 22 countries, with 38 per cent of respondents from the Asia-Pacific region.

India reported better results than the rest of the world in other categories as well. More than 90 per cent of respondents from India said that communication between IT and the board about IT matters is a very formalized, regular process, compared with the worldwide average of 54 per cent. Additionally, only 11 per cent of respondents in India reported a disconnect between IT and the business strategy, compared to a global average of 29 per cent.

Other countries in the Asia-Pacific region reported very different results. For example, only 26 per cent of respondents from Japan reported that IT is discussed regularly (or more often) by the board, compared to 63 per cent of respondents world-wide.

Globally, the study found that IT is on the agenda of the boards of directors more frequently, and more respondents believe that IT is very important to the delivery of the corporate strategy (both statistics saw a 5 per cent increase).

However, the study also found that CEOs are responsible for governance over IT in only 24 per cent of the responding organisations.

"As in the 2003 study, CEOs and business executives are still hesitant to discuss IT governance," said Everett Johnson, CPA, international president of ITGI. "This finding is troubling because boards and CEOs are ultimately responsible for oversight over all major assets - including IT."

Other findings include:

• The IT department at more than half (56 per cent) of the organisations surveyed understands and supports the business users' needs.
• IT outsourcing is no longer seen as the most beneficial way to resolve IT problems - 45 per cent of US respondents believe it is ineffective.
• The number of companies that indicated they had no IT problems increased from 7 per cent in 2003 to 21 per cent in 2005.
• IT governance is not as easily implemented as respondents originally estimated.
• Only 9 per cent of the responding organisations are not considering implementing any IT governance solutions-down from 17 per cent in the 2003 survey.