CIO Performance Measurement

Over the last decades, the academy and the community of practice have described the differences in CIO profiles recognizing that the challenges posed by the technological development and the evolution of business models require a wide array of abilities and skills that not always match companies and individuals. If the classic idea of ‘what you measure is what you get’ is also true in IT, then a possible explanation of the misalignments of IS/IT units may lie in the wrong measurement of the expected performances and results of CIOs. This conceptual article explores and describes the effects of performance management and analyzes how it could affect the performance of the CIO

Identifying factors in the relationship between top management and IS personnel

Permanent development of new technologies, growing expectations of customers and constant struggle for surviving in the market are forcing companies to develop business innovations including innovative information systems in order to obtain competitive advantages. However, consequences of implementing them in inefficient relationship between top management and IS personnel are often neglected. There are still numerous failed IS implementation projects due to failed attempts to align business and IS spheres in the companies. Neglecting the gap between top management and IS personnel can cause severe consequences. The purpose of this research is thus to ease the understanding of the relationship between top management and IS personnel and to define key factors that are important in this relationship. 221 CIOs and 93 CEOs agreed to participate in the research and the responses were compared reciprocally. The result of the empirical investigation reveals the existence of nine factors that are important in the business-IS relationship with seven factors being perceived differently by the top management and IS management and thus causing the gap in the business-IS relationship

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

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 evolution of the CIO profile: Evidence in Chile

The great and dynamic possibilities offered by the information technologies (IT) impose new challenges to the organizations. The new capabilities of IT demand that the skills and abilities of the people in charge of the technological management evolve accordingly. In this context we are intrigued by what is the evolution of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) that endows him/her with the capacity to face such challenges? Are there patterns in the evolution of the CIO profile? To answer these questions we integrated the definitions in the literature for the ideal CIO profile with the academic programs of prestigious universities in a conceptual map. Then we interviewed 26 CIOs working in Chile to contrast their profiles with the conceptual map. From the literature review we found several prescriptive features regarding the profile and role of the CIO in modern organizations. Differences were found between the ideal role and the evolutionary status of Chilean CIOs. In spite of the differences, we found patterns for the evolution of the profile that allowed us to propose hypotheses and recommendations for the evolution of Chilean CIOs. Finally, we believe that this paper offers a powerful diagnose of the CIO profile to be used by organizations, IT professionals and universities to set professional and academic paths for success in the IT leading position

Corporate Information Infrastructure – Management Aspects

The development of information and communication technologies enforces an increasing dependence of the business on a successfully built and developed corporate information technologies infrastructure. The role of the IT manager and the IT team of the company constantly evolves. In this paper, we present management aspects of the core components and desired characteristics of IT infrastructure in the corporate organization as well as the human factor behind (or beside) it in the face of the IT manager and the IT team of the company. We develop a conceptual framework of the connections, dependencies, responsibilities and activities of an IT manager and company’s IT team

A Framework for the Impact of IT on Organizational Performance

Purpose – Despite the constant stream of research investigating information technology (IT) business value, IT capabilities, and competitive advantage, researchers are calling for a more coherent understanding of the firm-level impacts of IT, and how those firm-level impacts can be measured. The purpose of this study is to investigate the multitude of organization-level studies of the impact of IT. Design/methodology/approach – Meta-analysis of IS literature from 2001-2009. Findings – The findings are synthesized into an overarching framework of the impact of IT at the organization level. The framework categorizes measures of the impact of IT into productivity, profitability, and intangible benefits, while the antecedents of IT impact are categorized into IT resources, IT capabilities, IT/business alignment and external factors. Originality/value – The research framework proposed provides a comprehensive snapshot of IS studies on organizational performance

IT governance as a higher order capability

This paper utilises the resource-based view as a framework to examine the interactions between information technology (IT) governance, IT management and organisational information systems. Analysis of data collected from medium and large Australian organisations indicates that IT governance capabilities act to improve IT management capabilities which in turn improve the performance of organisational information systems, specifically future-oriented accounting information systems. We propose that these interactions represent the operation of an overarching organisational IT capability. Further analysis finds significant differences in the most effective combinations of IT governance and IT management mechanisms for organisations facing differing levels of environmental turbulence. This finding highlights the importance of utilising IT governance as a higher order organisational capability to reconfigure and align capabilities and resources in response to changing strategic requirements and environmental pressures

The Effect of Information Technology Investment Governance on Information Technology Performance and Organizational Performance: a Case Study

The increase in information technology (IT) investment and organizational competition are the reasons for the evaluation of investment decisions in the IT field. The evaluation that needs to be done is to set priorities for IT investments, given the limited resources and human resources. The determination of IT investment priorities must be carefully considered by managing effective IT investments to provide positive results for the organization. The purpose of this research is to investigate IT investment governance and to investigate how to determine and govern IT investment projects' priorities in improving IT performance and organizational performance at one of the largest universities in Indonesia. The method used in this research is a qualitative method. Data collection techniques in this study are interviews and document reviews, and the NVIVO application is used to analyze the data. The results of the study show that IT investment governance at the university is still in the process of development, but has been implemented quite good. This is indicated by the existence of functional structures, processes, and relational mechanisms that are following several policies and regulations applied at the university. Although it has been carried out quite well, IT investment governance cannot be said to be effective because it still has weaknesses, namely that the university still does not have a clear IT governance standard or framework

Tech-Savvy on Board: Investigating the Impact of Board of Directors’ IT Professional Experiences on Firms’ IT Investment and Performance

Our study investigates whether having directors with IT professional experiences on board impacts a firm’s IT investment growth and financial performance. We gather data from BoardEx, Compustat, and Harte-Hanks databases for S&P 1500 firms between 2011 and 2017. We include a rich set of controls and fixed effects in the analysis. We also employ a novel strategy to adjust for the remaining selection on unobservables. Our analysis shows that firms with tech-savvy directors have higher investment growth in different categories of IT including software, hardware, communication, and services. We also find these firms experience better performance measured by Tobin’s Q. The findings highlight the importance of board of directors in driving IT investment growth and firm performance