Contextual determinants of IT governance mechanism formulation for senior care services in local governments

•This study reveals a dynamic service delivery structure for IT-enabled senior-care services.•IT governance mechanism formulation is influenced by demand-supply market forces.•Institutional pressures strongly affect the IT governance mechanism formulation in governments.•Institutional pressures transit the supply market force into IT governance mechanism formulation.•A survey involving 329 town-level local governments in China was conducted to validate our model. Recognizing the critical role that information technology (IT) can play for the aging population, local governments tend to take responsibilities for IT-enabled senior care service delivery. Formulating IT governance mechanisms is important for governments to perform their responsibilities and maximize public value. As service arrangers, governments’ actions are affected by complex external environments for legitimacy, which has been largely ignored in the existing studies. By incorporating the strategic and institutional perspectives of legitimacy into Savas’s service delivery structure, this study developed a triadic framework that accounts for different contextual determinants related to the external market environment and the institutional environment to investigate the formulation of IT governance mechanisms. A survey involving 329 town-level governments in Beijing, China, was done to validate our research model. The results illustrate that the demand-supply market forces have direct impacts on IT governance mechanism formulation in local governments. Institutional pressures exert a mediating effect by transiting the supply market force into governments’ actions. Our triadic framework reveals a dynamic service delivery structure, contributing to Savas’s service delivery structure and IT governance research.