IT Stereotyping and the CEO-CIO Headlock

In addition to running organizational systems, Chief Information Officers (CIOs) are increasingly expected to embrace a broader role in their organizations by driving innovation and being key strategic partners to the CEO and other members of the C-level team. Their ability to fulfill this challenging role, however, is inhibited by the existence (and influence) of IT stereotypes. When CEOs harbor these stereotypes, they tend to treat the CIO as a “last among equals” and relegate the CIO to a supporting role thus denying a strategic opportunity for IT. This research develops a means of assessing the IT stereotypes and their strength and examines their impact on the role of IT within the organization. This study will introduce a novel theoretical approach to the understanding of the relationship between the IT organization and the rest of the business. Implications for theory and practice are presented

Is the CIO the “last among equals”? Students’ Perceptions of the Stereotype profiles of CIOs, CFOs, and CMOs

Researchers have often emphasized the ambiguous and challenging role that CIOs play in organizations. While some argue that CIOs are embracing new leadership roles in their organizations and suggesting that CIOs should mean Chief Influential Officers, many others argue the opposite and even refer to the term CIO as the Career Is Over. We argue that these roles may be influenced by the existence and potentially persistence of distinct stereotype profiles at the C-suite level. This paper explores business students’ perceptions of CIOs in comparison with CMOs and CFOs. We identified 18 variables that best discriminate CIOs from these two executives, revealing that CIOs are perceived as having adequate social leadership skills, but lacking leader dominance skills such as taking initiative and being assertive. Our results suggest that business students enter their professional careers with well-defined stereotypes that can potentially influence the role of the CIO

The Whitworthian 2006-2007

The Whitworthian student newspaper, September 2006-May 2007.https://digitalcommons.whitworth.edu/whitworthian/1091/thumbnail.jp