EXAMINING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN IT PROJECT RISK MANAGEMENT AND BENEFITS REALIZED FROM IT PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION WITHIN THE PUBLIC SECTOR

Authors

  • Fredrick Bitta University of Nairobi image/svg+xml , Department of Computing and Informatics The University of Nairobi, Nairobi, Kenya
  • Prof. Robert Oboko Department of Computing and Informatics The University of Nairobi, Nairobi, Kenya
  • Prof. Christopher Chepken Department of Computing and Informatics The University of Nairobi, Nairobi, Kenya

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.24191/mjoc.vo11i1.7621

Keywords:

Customer Service Delivery, IT Benefits Realized, IT Risk Management, Number of Customers, Return on Investments

Abstract

Information technology (IT) has become increasingly critical in today's digital world, supporting, sustaining, and driving growth in public organizations. The board of directors and senior management have traditionally delegated, disregarded, or avoided IT decisions. The majority of public sector organizations have realized that such a mindset is outdated and must be avoided. Being a foundation for effective enterprise governance, the IT risk management domain seeks to guarantee that a structure exists for identifying, analyzing, mitigating, monitoring and communicating an organization's IT risk to ensure successful IT project implementation. This research, therefore, sought to examine the relationship between risk management of IT projects and the hypothesized benefits from IT investments, namely Return on Investments (ROI), number of customers served and the level of customer service delivery. A total of 309 out of 517 public sector organizations in Kenya were sampled, and data were collected from heads of departments, including IT, Finance, HR, Audit, and Technical among others, through an online research tool.  The correlation results revealed that IT risk management and ROI had a weak and negative correlation. The correlation between the management of IT risk and the number of customers served was equally found to be weak and negative. However, the correlation between IT risk management and customer service delivery was positive and significant. Results from the multivariate regression test revealed that risk management of IT projects significantly improved customer service delivery but had no significant effect on both ROI and number of customers. The study concluded that there was a significant effect of IT risk management on the customer service delivery. Therefore, senior management had a responsibility to ensure that IT risk management was incorporated in all major IT projects to ensure that improved customer service delivery benefit was realized.

Author Biographies

  • Prof. Robert Oboko, Department of Computing and Informatics The University of Nairobi, Nairobi, Kenya

    Robert Oboko is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of Nairobi Department of Computing and Informatics. He specializes in ICT for Education research and practice, in particular, the use of Adaptive User Interfaces with learner modelling, Machine Learning and Adaptive web-based learning interfaces to scaffold learners. He works with students at all levels to do research on use of Artificial Intelligence in areas other than Education, such as Agriculture and Health. He does research and consultancy work in ICT for Development. He holds a PhD from University of Nairobi, MSc from Free University of Brussels, MA in Development Studies from University of Nairobi and Bed (Mathematics) from Kenyatta University. Email: roboko@uonbi.ac.ke.

  • Prof. Christopher Chepken, Department of Computing and Informatics The University of Nairobi, Nairobi, Kenya

    Christopher Chepken is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of Nairobi Department of Computing and Informatics. Having done ICT4D/ICTD research and consultancy in urban commuting challenges-telecommuting; Education; Health; Agriculture and Business process outsourcing, he has gained considerable experience in carrying out ICT and development related initiatives. He has experience both as a practitioner and as a researcher from East and Southern African countries. He holds a PhD  in Computer Science from University of Cape Town, MSc in Applied Computer Science from University of Nairobi and BSc Degree in Computer Science from University of Nairobi.  Email: chepken@uonbi.ac.ke

     

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Published

2026-04-01

Issue

Vol. 11 No. 1 (2026): MJoC Volume 11(1) 2026

Section

Articles

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Copyright (c) 2026 Fredrick Bitta, Prof. Robert Oboko, Prof. Christopher Chepken

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How to Cite

Bitta, F., Oboko, R., & Chepken, C. (2026). EXAMINING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN IT PROJECT RISK MANAGEMENT AND BENEFITS REALIZED FROM IT PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION WITHIN THE PUBLIC SECTOR. Malaysian Journal of Computing, 11(1), 2348-2366. https://doi.org/10.24191/mjoc.vo11i1.7621