Environmental modelling of the Chief Information Officer

Since the introduction of the term in the 1980’s, the role of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) has been widely researched. Various perceptions and dimensions of the role have been explored and debated. However, the explosion in data proliferation (and the inevitable resulting information fuelled change) further complicates organisational expectations of the CIOs role. If organisations are to competitively exploit the digital trend, then those charged with recruiting and developing CIOs now need to be more effective in determining (and shaping) CIO traits and attributes, within the context of their own organisational circumstances and in line with stakeholder expectations. CIOs also need to determine their own suitability and progression within their chosen organisation if they are to remain motivated and effective. Before modelling the role of the future CIO, it is necessary to synthesise our current knowledge (and the lessons learnt) about the CIO. This paper, therefore, aims to identify and summate the spectrum of key researched ‘themes’ pertaining to the role of the CIO. Summating previous research, themes are modelled around four key CIO ‘dimensions’, namely (1) Impacting factors, (2) Controlling factors (3) Responses and (4) CIO ‘attributes’. Having modelled the CIOs current environment, and recognising the evolving IT enabled information landscape, the authors call for further research to inform the recruitment and development of the future CIO in terms of personal attributes and the measurable impact such attributes will have on their respective organisation

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

ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks: a literature review

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation is a complex and vibrant process, one that involves a combination of technological and organizational interactions. Often an ERP implementation project is the single largest IT project that an organization has ever launched and requires a mutual fit of system and organization. Also the concept of an ERP implementation supporting business processes across many different departments is not a generic, rigid and uniform concept and depends on variety of factors. As a result, the issues addressing the ERP implementation process have been one of the major concerns in industry. Therefore ERP implementation receives attention from practitioners and scholars and both, business as well as academic literature is abundant and not always very conclusive or coherent. However, research on ERP systems so far has been mainly focused on diffusion, use and impact issues. Less attention has been given to the methods used during the configuration and the implementation of ERP systems, even though they are commonly used in practice, they still remain largely unexplored and undocumented in Information Systems research. So, the academic relevance of this research is the contribution to the existing body of scientific knowledge. An annotated brief literature review is done in order to evaluate the current state of the existing academic literature. The purpose is to present a systematic overview of relevant ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks as a desire for achieving a better taxonomy of ERP implementation methodologies. This paper is useful to researchers who are interested in ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks. Results will serve as an input for a classification of the existing ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks. Also, this paper aims also at the professional ERP community involved in the process of ERP implementation by promoting a better understanding of ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks, its variety and history

Time for Climate Change: Leadership, IT Climate, and their Impact on Organizational Performance

Information systems (IS) have become essential for operating firms successfully. How to align business and information technology (IT) executives to in-crease organizational output has been widely dis-cussed in literature. This research focusses on pre-requisites and consequences of a positive IT climate in organizations where the need for deep IT and business knowledge is constantly increasing. We shed light on how organizational leaders, both from business and IT, influence a positive organizational IT climate by IT leadership and subsequently, how an organizational IT climate affects strategic align-ment and firm performance. By applying a two steps approach, this study evaluates the results of a survey among 322 IT decision makers in the U.S. working in knowledge-intensive and less-knowledge intensive industries. Our findings illustrate that IT leadership and IT climate differ between the two groups, and can confirm organization wide firm IS knowledge as a strategically important resource to achieve organ-izational performance

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

The chief digital officer position and its firm-level impact: A literature review on CDO research and an analysis of CDO presence and performance implications

With rapidly advancing technologies and digital innovations, companies face the need to adapt to the new digital world and to digitally transform their business models. For executing the digital transformation process, more and more companies decide to entrust a new C-level manager with all challenges and complexity arising from digital transformation, the Chief Digital Officer (CDO). As the CDO position is still fairly new, research in this field is limited and requires further attention by scholars. Therefore, this study aims to address three fundamental research questions concerning the nature of the CDO position and corresponding implications not only to inform practitioners but also to enrich the scholarly discussion on CDOs. By understanding existing literature on CDOs based on a systematic literature review, this thesis answers the first research question regarding what characterizes the CDO position. Building on these insights and drawing from a comprehensive theoretical framework consisting of upper echelons theory, contingency theory, human capital theory and the resource-based view, hypotheses are developed for answering research questions two and three. While the second research question focuses on factors, which influence CDO presence within a company, the third research question addresses the impact of a CDO on company performance. Based on a large-scale sample of panel data comprised of S&P 500 companies, generalized estimating equations models, propensity score matching and fixed effects regression models are exploited in order to derive answers for both research questions two and three. As influencing factors for CDO presence, the results show that especially early tenure CEOs and CEOs of larger companies are more likely to employ a CDO. Although no evidence can be observed for positive performance implications of CDOs, also given different company contingencies, the insights of this study's analyses show that certain CDO characteristics as well as in combination with CIO presence and varying CEO characteristics are more favorable over others in terms of company performance measured by return on assets and Tobin's Q

We've got the power - the relevance of IT leadership and organizational IT capabilities in the fully digitized business era

Modern information technologies allow for an ever increasing digitization of business processes in various industries around the globe. This requires an organization-wide digital mindset and IT capabilities to react agile in turbulent business environments. Which enabling role CIOs have to develop IT capabilities as necessary predecessor to develop organization-wide strategic IT alignment is still unclear. How strategic IT alignment as means to react to rapid market changes can be achieved as consequence of organization-wide capabilities has not been answered yet. In this research, we capture individual and organizational factors characterizing the CIO position and combine them with two preliminary stages of IT competencies, IT infrastructure and IT capabilities, in a single nomological net to identify their influence on strategic IT alignment. Evaluating the results by means of a broad sample collected within a survey among 141 IT-decision makers in the U.S., our partial least squares analysis supports most of our hypotheses, notably verifying the influence of CIOs on organizational structures and strategic IT alignment, therefore fully mediated by IT capabilities. Building on Mintzberg, we propose strengthening the CIO leadership position furthermore throughout the entire organization to cope with the challenges arising from the ongoing digitization of business processes

Chief digital officers:An analysis of the presence of a centralized digital transformation role

By appointing a chief digital officer (CDO), firms decide for a central role responsible for their digital transformation. While CDOs have recently appeared in the C-suites of firms across the globe, the current literature lacks insights into the specific antecedents of CDO presence. Grounded in the peculiarities of the digital age, we provide theoretical arguments explaining how the decision to centralize digital transformation responsibilities might be related to transformation urgency and coordination needs. Empirical analyses based on a panel data set of 913 U.S. and European firms support that transformation urgency and coordination needs predict CDO presence. An additional analysis of moderating temporal effects reveals that, over time, the effect of transformation urgency is weakened and the effect of coordination needs on CDO presence is strengthened. We discuss implications for research and practice regarding the antecedents of CDO presence, TMT research more generally, and centralization in the digital age