| Abstract: | This paper presents an empirical study of the risk factors of large governmental information systems (IS)
projects. For this purpose the Official Decisions of the Greek Government Information Technology Projects
Advisory Committee (ITPAC) concerning 80 large IS projects have been analyzed and interviews with its
members have been conducted. From this analysis 21 risk factors have been identified, and further elaborated
and associated with inherent particular characteristics of the public sector, extending existing approaches
in the literature. A categorization of them with respect to origin revealed that they are associated with the
management, the processes, and the content of these projects. Results show that behind the identified risk
factors there are political factors, which are associated with intra-organizational and inter-organizational
politics and competition, and can be regarded as ‘second level’ risk sources. The risk factors identified in
this study are compared with the ones found by similar studies conducted in Hong Kong, Finland, and the
United States, and also with the ones mentioned by OECD reports. Similarities and differences are discussed. |
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Greek