Do Not Call Me Chief Information Officer, But Chief Integration Officer. A Summary of the 2011 Detroit CIO Roundtable

In 2011 a roundtable meeting of Chief Information Officers (CIOs) that was organized by the Manufacturing Information systems Center at the School of Business Administration at Wayne State University discussed the emergence of public cloud computing and how this is changing the role of the CIO for medium- and large-sized organizations. The nine CIOs represented a range of manufacturing and service industries in the Greater Detroit area. This article summarizes the key themes of that roundtable, namely, the continuing change in role of the CIO as public cloud computing becomes mainstream. Key among those changes is not as much technological, because private clouds have been around now for quite some time, but rather in the broader and more challenging scope of responsibilities the CIOs now have. The role of the CIO is evolving from providing and supporting information technology and systems toward one largely based on managing the integration of externally acquired standardized hardware, software, and services while retaining quality control and remaining within budget, as well as the need to be more acquainted with the legal side of contracting. This changing set of CIO responsibilities has not made the technical skills any less important, but it has added a host of additional skills that the CIOs and those serving under them now need to master

The Center Cannot Hold: How Leading Firms are Managing the Changing IT Boundaries

The IT world is going through rapid and drastic changes with the emergence of new business models and, with them, the changing of internal and external organizational boundaries. A recent CIO roundtable composed of the CIOs of some of the leading corporations in Greater Detroit discussed the impact of these shifting boundaries on IT issues including outsourcing, careers, and employee development. Contemporary IT depends on external vendors, yet these relationships can be complicated. Employees are increasingly mobile, and the skillsets that firms demand are changing significantly. The panelists suggested that firms should focus on developing and engaging employees despite the risks of turnover

Digital Project Leadership and Talent Management in the As-Practice Perspective

Digital Transformation studies have emphasized the emergence of new post-alignment challenges with a more seamless integration of business and technology strategies. Project leaders face more complex tasks, requiring hybrid skillsets, blending business and technology expertise, and spanning operational and strategic levels. The research question motivating this review is: how can IT executives best identify and position IT professionals and managers to fit digital leadership roles? These challenges are directly linked to Talent Management (TM) practices to help coach project teams and managers in developing digital leadership competencies. A brief literature review is presented, grounded in theoretical perspectives that link these competencies to IT and digital strategy outcomes. A model is proposed to integrate the literature around Strategy-as-Practice and Project-as-Practice serving as broader theoretical canvas. The conclusion proposes a research agenda to help integrate TM with digital leadership and encourage new empirical studies of digital projects in the “as-practice” perspective

Hard And Soft ICT Capital And Cloud Computing Benefits

The Cloud Computing (CC) is a new innovative model of sourcing the information and communication technologies (ICT) services required by firms for supporting their activities, so it is necessary to investigate the level of benefits that CC offers to firms, as well as their determinants. However, limited empirical research has been conducted in this direction. Our paper contributes to filling this research gap. It formulates a set of research hypotheses concerning the effects of firm’s ‘hard ICT capital’, and also some types of firm’s ‘soft ICT capital’, on the benefits offered by CC, having as theoretical foundation the ‘resource-based view’ theory. These research hypotheses are tested using data collected through a survey from 115 Greek firms, from which CC benefits regression models are estimated. It has been concluded that the sophistication of firm’s ICT infrastructure (an overall measure of firm’s hard ICT capital) has a positive impact on CC benefits. Furthermore, three of the examined types of soft ICT capital have been found to impact positively CC benefits: the information systems (IS) inter- connection/integration capability, the ICT strategic planning and alignment capability, and the internal relationship between firm’s ICT unit and business units. Our findings reveal some aspects of firm’s ICT capital that affect the generation of value from this new innovative CC paradigm, which can be useful to CC service providers, and also management and ICT firms’ practitioners and consultant

Tax the Rich: Teachers\u27 Long Campaign to Fund Public Schools

Why did teachers’ long campaign to fund schools with progressive income taxes on the rich fall short? Labor-liberals hoped to equalize opportunity for students by shifting school taxes from local communities like Detroit and Los Angeles to the states. Businessmen and conservatives instead centralized cuts by changing how budget decisions are made, imposing constitutional limits to slow the growth rate of state government. Tax limits are distinct from tax cuts. Tax the Rich builds on the established literature about the grassroots politics of education, and moves in new directions by centering the agency of organized interests—teachers unions, business associations, and farmers organizations—powerful enough to build enduring coalitions and to structure fiscal options. The story begins in 1930, when the Great Depression turned farmers against the property tax, recast business boosters as tax limiters, and forced teachers to defend school finance; it ends in 1980, when tax revolts went national with former California governor Ronald Reagan’s election as president. Michigan and California, laboratories for tax limitation campaigns and educational court cases, are the reference points. After property owners defaulted on their local taxes in the early 1930s, and later voted down renewals and increases during the 1960s, liberal and labor organizers searched for alternative taxes based on ability to pay while conservative and business operatives persuaded voters to constitutionally tie legislators’ purse strings. Paying for education in a democracy at times requires antidemocratic decisions, on left and right, by labor and business. Tax the Rich argues resources never matched Americans’ ambitions to make schools the hidden welfare state

Contractual and Relational Governance, ICT Skills and Organization Adaptations, and Cloud Computing Benefits

Cloud Computing (CC) has high potential to offer to firms important benefits, concerning both costs reduction, and in general efficiency improvements, as well as innovation facilitation and support. However, these benefits are not straightforward and auto-matically generated; their realization as well as their magnitude will depend on a variety of factors. Nevertheless, limited empirical research has been conducted in order to identify CC benefits’ determinants. This paper contributes to filling this research gap. It empirically investigates the effects of a) the contractual and relational governance of firm’s relationships with its CC services providers, and b) the adaptations of the skills of firm’s ICT personnel, as well as its internal ICT organization, to this new CC paradigm, on the magnitude of CC bene-fits. Our study uses data collected through a questionnaire from 115 Greek firms using CC services. It has been concluded that all the above four examined factors impact positively the benefits firms obtain from CC; the effect of the adaptation of the skills of firm’s ICT personnel is the strongest, followed by the effect of the relational governance

Moving Forward on Racial Justice Philanthropy

This is the fifth volume of the Critical Issues Forum series, which aims to deepen the discourse around important progressive racial justice issues within philanthropy. As PRE celebrated our 10th anniversary last year and engaged allies within the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors to mark the occasion with us, we heard "Have you seen any progress?" repeatedly and knew it was important to take stock of what many of us have been collectively aiming to move for decades. Through focus groups, webinars and direct interviews, our team has sought to get a strong sense of both funders' and activists' perspectives on progress particularly over the past two decades. We have heard real frustration, especially as the needs are so critical and the level of urgency among activists and communities is so high. However, in spite of these very real concerns, we have also seen clear commitment and depth of understanding in other quarters. We are pleased that through funder case studies and activist essays about structural racism analysis, intersectionality and media justice, we're able to share real progress, even as each piece recognizes there is still much more to be done

TIETOHALLINTOJOHTAMISEN SISÄLLÖLLINEN MUUTOS PANKKITOIMIKENTÄLLÄ 2010-LUVULLA

Tämä tutkimus käsittelee tietohallintojohtamisen muutosta 2010-luvun pankkiliiketoiminnassa. Tutkimuksessa haettiin vastausta kahteen tutkimuskysymykseen: 1) Mitkä tekijät ovat muuttaneet tietohallintojohtamista pankkiliiketoiminnassa 2010-luvulla? 2) Minkälaisia ovat tietohallintojohtajalta edellytettävät kompetenssit pankkiliiketoiminnassa? Tutkimuksen kohteena olivat Suomessa toimivien pankkien tietohallintojohtajat. Teoriaosuudessa käyn läpi tiedon, tietohallinnon, tiedolla johtamisen sekä kompetenssipohjaisen johtamisen osa-alueet sekä kuvaan tietohallintojohtajan roolia pankkitoimikentällä. Tutkimuksen aineisto koostuu haastatteluista, ajankohtaisista artikkeleista ja blogiteksteistä sekä pankkien virallisista dokumenteista. Artikkelit ja blogitekstit sekä toimintadokumentit täydensivät haastatteluaineistoa, jotta saatiin kattava kuva tietohallintojohtajan työstä. Käytän abduktiivista tutkimusmenetelmää, joka tarkoittaa, että aineistosta on noussut teemoja, joiden perusteella olen etsinyt niihin soveltuvaa teoriataustaa ja sen jälkeen ole lukenut vuorotellen aineistoa ja teoriaa, joiden pohjalta tutkimus on edennyt. Tutkimuksen tulokset osoittavat, että tietohallintojohtamisessa on tapahtunut selkeä muutos 2010-luvun pankkiliiketoiminnassa, joka on vaikuttanut tietohallintojohtajan tehtävänkuvaan. Suurimmat muutokset tietohallintojohtajan roolissa ovat liiketoiminnan korostuminen sekä digitalisaation luomat uudet mahdollisuudet kehittää liiketoimintaa. Näiden muutosten johdosta tietohallintojohtajan rooli on muuttunut eräänlaiseksi hybridijohtajaksi, joka on noussut uuteen arvoon yritysten hierarkiassa. Tietohallintojohtajalta vaadittavat kompetenssivaateet ovat muuttuneet suuntaan, jossa tietohallintojohtajalta vaaditaan liiketoimintatuntemusta, teknistä osaamista sekä sujuvaa vuorovaikutusta

ICT RESOURCES & CAPABILITIES, ECONOMIC CRISIS AND CRM ADOPTION

Firms are implementing Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems not for reducing their operational costs and increasing their efficiency, as it happens with other kinds of information systems, but in order to offer better services to their customers and build better relationships with them. This fact stems from CRM’s customer facing nature, which is there to improve the relationship a firm has with its most valuable asset: the customers. However, there is limited research about the factors that lead firms to adopt CRM systems. This paper aims to contribute to filling this research gap, by investigating the effects of a wide range of factors on CRM adoption by firms; these factors include firm’s ICT resources and capabilities, and also the effects of a major disruption in the environment: economic crisis leading to recession. Our main theoretical foundation is the Technology, Organization, Environment (TOE) theory of technological innovation adoption. Based on data from 363 Greek firms CRM adoption models have been estimated, which indicate that the sophistication of firm’s ICT technological resources has a strong positive effect on CRM adoption, alongside two ICT capabilities: ICT strategic planning, and the rapid internal implementation of various interconnections/integrations of existing applications to achieve interoperability. Human capital, innovativeness and use of ‘organic’ forms of work organization (such as horizontal teamwork) are also important factors that affect positively CRM adoption. On the contrary, the effects of the economic crisis (decrease of domestic demand for products/services from businesses, individual customers and the public sector, reduction of credit limits by banks and non-payment or late payment by customers) do not have impact on CRM systems adoption