Leveraging the Potential of Soft Systems Methodology to Trigger Data Governance Policy-Making in the Banking Industry

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

• Mohammadali Faezirad ¹
• Abolfazl Khoshnevisan ²

¹ Industries Research Group, Institute for Trade Studies and Research (ITSR), Tehran, Iran.

² Faculty of Industrial Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.

10.22067/jstinp.2023.81196.1038

Abstract

A data governance policy is a foundational document providing instructions to manage data assets and organizational information effectively. Within the field of data governance, data access is one of the most important aspects of data management and includes considerations such as the extent of access, how to access data, access position, and data control and application. This research focuses on the banking industry, as its multiple stakeholders, diverse attitudes, and intangible aspects have created a problematic situation. To better understand and improve the current situation, soft systems methodology (SSM) provides a rich picture of the complex situation of data access in the bank, extracts key system definitions, and leads to a correct understanding of purposeful activities. After identifying these purposeful activities, a support policy for each set of activities is evaluated based on the literature in the field of data governance, specifically regarding data access. A mapping is established between activities and the fundamental principles of the data governance policy. One important innovation of this research is that, instead of directly utilizing SSM in the policy development process, it describes the situation and fundamental actions to provide the foundation for the policy. In conclusion, the data access problem has been identified as having various dimensions that can be grouped into six categories: data application, risk, processing, infrastructure, route, and access. These categories have been used to develop 13 support policy rules.

Keywords

• Banking sector
• Data access policy
• Data governance
• Data management
• Soft systems methodology

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