INFORMATION SYSTEMS STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP IN THE LAST DECADE: NEW ADVANCEMENTS AND BLUE OCEAN OPPORTUNITIES

Information Systems (IS) strategic leadership literature is an important research stream in the IS field. Chief Information Officers (CIO) are central to this literature, with several themes discussing the roles, characteristics, effectiveness, CIO/TMT relationships, and organizational impact of CIOs. This paper discusses the IS leadership literature in last decade (2007-2017) with the objectives of synthesizing the recent articles, identifying new emerging themes, and presenting opportunities for “Blue Ocean” research. We argue that more research is still needed in this field, and potential contributions for both academia and practice are great

Plate-Spinning for Success: CIOs, Embrace your Role Paradoxes!

Today’s CIOs face a host of perplexing and conflicting demands. Learning how to embrace these complex paradoxes is akin to learning the art of spinning plates in opposite directions. Early insights from our interview-based study reveal that CIOs are embracing their role-related paradoxes by developing a “plate-spinning mindset,” i.e., a mindset that helps CIOs spin multiple metaphorical plates in opposite directions. In this paper, we inform practitioners what a plate-spinning mindset entails, and how to develop such a mindset

A New Dualistic CIO Toolbox: Towards Ambidexterity in the Digital Business Transformation

By transferring organizational learning concepts into the IT context, this paper provides a new behavior oriented foundation for managing IT organizations in the digital business transformation. As a practical contribution, the paper introduces a new management toolbox which supports Chief Information Officers (CIOs) to lead their Information Technology (IT) organizations towards ambidexterity in the digital business transformation. The organizational ambidexterity is required for the digital business transformation in order to contribute innovativeness while simultaneously assuring effective operational IT environment. The toolbox is constructed using the systematic concept analysis and the concept derivation methods to convert the organizational learning concepts into the dualistic CIO toolbox. The toolbox includes a set of traditional Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to assure operational effectiveness and a set of leadership principles to enable an innovative and experimental organizational behaviour. The application of the new dualistic CIO toolbox is illustrated through hypothetical cases

Unconfirmed: Why Reducing the Number of Senate-confirmed Positions Can Make Government More Effective

The federal workforce is composed of about 2 million civil servants who provide continuity across presidential administrations and another 4,000 political appointees who are selected by the president. About 1,200 of these political appointees require Senate approval. Despite presidential interest in filling positions across government to advance political and policy objectives, the number of Senate-confirmed positions, along with the complexity of the appointment process, has resulted in a slowdown of confirmations and an increase in vacancies. This situation limits agency operations and reduces the president's capacity to govern and the Senate's power to hold officials accountable.Using appointments data from the Political Appointee Tracker compiled by the Partnership for Public Service and The Washington Post along with expert analysis, this report highlights key trends in filling Senate-confirmed positions and in the nomination and confirmation process. These trends generate serious barriers to government effectiveness, responsiveness and agility. The Senate, in collaboration with the executive branch, has occasionally taken steps to reduce the number of political appointees and make the confirmation process more efficient. However, the number of Senate-confirmed positions poses a daunting challenge for any president, often leading to vacancies that undermine the execution of responsibilities that Congress has established and the taxpayer's fund.This report offers seven potential approaches to streamline the political appointment process for those positions requiring Senate confirmation and assesses when each of these approaches could be most useful and feasible, setting the stage for a reduction or rescoping of Senate-confirmed positions in favor of longer term, nonconfirmed or career alternatives while preserving the Senate's constitutional role and oversight function

Personality, Gender and Careers in Information Technology

The downturn in information technology enrollment numbers in colleges and universities has spurred a stream of research focusing on identifying factors that inhibit students’ interest in information technology. Most of these studies measure individuals’ perceptions and beliefs. We argue that the profession is composed of multiple occupations and those occupations have different characteristics concerning the work performed, the opportunities available, and the people who are employed in those occupations. We investigate the relationship between personality and the intent of students to pursue careers in the information technology field. Last, we examine if there is a gender personality profile for students who decide to pursue careers in information technology. Our findings can be used by researchers and practitioners to better describe to students the specific opportunities and career paths available within the IT profession

U.S. SDG Data Revolution Roadmap

One year after adopting the SDGs, in an addendum to its Open Government National Action Plan, the U.S. Government committed to develop an SDG Data Revolution Roadmap that "charts the future course of efforts to fill data gaps and build capacity to use data for decision-making and innovation to advance sustainable development." The U.S. Government's SDG Data Revolution Roadmap will outline the government's commitments-to-action from 2017-2018. With a deadline of June 2017, it will be developed by the U.S. Government "through an open and inclusive process that engages the full range of citizen, non-governmental, and private sector stakeholders."This report represents the beginning of that engagement process. On December 14, 2016, the Center for Open Data Enterprise and the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data convened a Roundtable to develop recommended priorities for the U.S. Government's SDG Data Revolution Roadmap The Roundtable brought together more than 40 stakeholders from government, civil society, and the private sector with expertise in achieving and promoting sustainable development

How the West was Lost: Chief Information Officers and the Battle of Jurisdictional Control

Recent research has highlighted the potential downfall of the role and profession of Chief Information Officer (CIO). As the top executive responsible for IT in an organization, this role has gone through several shifts since its advent in the 1980’s. This study addresses how the role has evolved, and, explores how it may evolve in the years to come. The study utilizes a combination of structured literature review and interviews, and is informed by Abbott’s systems of professions perspective. The findings show that after an increase in jurisdictional control prior to the turn of the millennium, the profession has decreased and is continuing to decrease its jurisdictional control. This is in part linked to the imposition of IT Governance frameworks designed to shift risk from the profession of CIOs to neighboring professions. This is discussed in light of calls for future research

Seeing More than Orange: Organizational Respect and Positive Identity Transformation in a Prison Context

This paper develops grounded theory on how receiving respect at work enables individuals to engage in positive identity transformation and the resulting personal and work-related outcomes. A company that employs inmates at a state prison to perform professional business-to-business marketing services provided a unique context for data collection. Our data indicate that inmates experienced respect in two distinct ways, generalized and particularized, which initiated an identity decoupling process that allowed them to distinguish between their inmate identity and their desired future selves and to construct transitional identities that facilitated positive change. The social context of the organization provided opportunities for personal and social identities to be claimed, respected, and granted, producing social validation and enabling individuals to feel secure in their transitional identities. We find that security in personal identities produces primarily performance-related outcomes, whereas security in the company identity produces primarily well-being-related outcomes. Further, these two types of security together foster an integration of seemingly incompatible identities—”identity holism”—as employees progress toward becoming their desired selves. Our work suggests that organizations can play a generative role in improving the lives of their members through respect-based processes

Qualitative Strategy for Inbound Call Center Outsourcing

An analysis of the various challenges of the call center industry, together with the challenges of outsourcing, revealed a need for developing a strategy that acts as a guide for organizations that are willing to outsource their call center operations. This research therefore develops a strategy for this purpose. The research first provides mitigation strategies for the challenges of outsourcing and the challenges of the call center industry, followed by a strategy for the outsourcing of call center services. Telephone call centers are an integral part of today‘s business world, serving as a primary channel for customer contact for organizations in many industries. Globalization, the advancements in the telecommunication and technology industries, and the availability of cost effective work forces around the world are compelling organizations to outsource their functions (call center services) to reap the benefits that come with outsourcing. Organizations outsource functions, especially a function that is not their core competence, for a multitude of reasons. These reasons may include cost savings, quality enhancement/improvement, reduced time to market, tax benefits, and risk management. Outsourcing also comes with its share of issues. A few examples of the challenges involved in outsourcing include cultural differences, knowledge transfer to suppliers while protecting intellectual property (IP), knowledge retention, language barriers, ethics, norms of behavior, distance and time zones, infrastructure, privacy and security, skill set/quality, objectivity, geopolitical climate, labor backlash, communication, end-user resistance, and governance. There are also many challenges associated with the call center industry, such as, but not limited to, deploying the right number of staff members with the right skills to the right schedules in order to meet an uncertain and time-varying demand of service, forecasting traffic, acquiring capacity, deploying resources, and managing service delivery. Therefore, despite the advancements in telecommunications and information technology, the challenges faced by client organizations that outsource their inbound call center services abound. While choosing outsourcing/offshoring as their strategy, an organization can avoid many of the disadvantages that arise due these risks/issues by adapting a proactive and careful approach such as the strategy developed in this research

Do KPIs used by CIOs Decelerate Digital Business Transformation? The Case of ITIL

This study provides a critical assessment of the current KPI-driven steering practices carried out by Chief Information Officers (CIOs). It explores how the use of ITIL KPIs affect the IT Service Management (ITSM) organization’s learning behavior and how this behavior impacts on Digital Business Transformation. The results indicate that, when used to steer the ITSM organization, ITIL KPIs will reduce the organization’s willingness to transform the current ITSM environment (i.e. current processes, work routines, services, policies and technologies) into the digital era. The findings suggest that, in order to successfully manage Digital Business Transformation, CIOs will need new types of management techniques which would endorse the organization’s norm-challenging and innovative learning abilities but also assure the operative effectiveness of the ITSM environment