Abstract
The Chief Information Officer (CIO) role has evolved over the decades and continues to do so, resulting in a C-suite role that has become very ambiguous. In addition to tracing the origins of this ambiguity, this chapter surfaces the consequences this has for a newly appointed CIO. The chapter also explores the emergence of Chief Digital Officers and Chief Data Officers (confusingly both CDOs!) and what this means for the positioning of the CIO and the IT leadership role.
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Notes
- 1.
In fact, studies exploring the nature of the CIO role have a long history. Seminal studies include B. Ives and M. Olson, ‘Manager or technician? The nature of the information systems job’, MIS Quarterly, Vol. 5, No. 4, 1981, pp. 49–63; R.I. Benjamin, C. Dickson and J. Rockart, ‘Changing role of the corporate information systems officer’, MIS Quarterly, Vol. 9, No 3, 1985, pp. 177–188; J.L. Donovan, ‘Beyond chief information officer to network manager’, Harvard Business Review, May–June 1988, pp. 134–140; J.C. Emery, ‘What role for the CIO’, MIS Quarterly, Vol. 5, No. 2, 1991, pp. vii–ix; C. Coulson-Thomas, ‘Directors and IT, and IT directors’, European Journal of Information Systems, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1991, pp. 45–53; C. Stephens, W. Ledbetter, A. Mitra and F. Ford, ‘Executive or functional manager? The nature of the CIOs job’, MIS Quarterly, Vol. 16, No. 4, 1992, pp. 449–467; L. Applegate and J. Elam, ‘New information systems leaders: A changing role in a changing world’, MIS Quarterly, Vol. 16, No. 4, 1992, pp. 469–490; M.J. Earl and D.F. Feeny, ‘Is your CIO adding value?’, Sloan Management Review, Spring, 1994, pp. 11–20; Y. Li, C.-H. Tan, H.H. Teo and B.C. Tan, ‘Innovative usage of information technology in Singapore organizations: Do CIO characteristics make a difference?’ IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, Vo. 53, No. 2, 2006, pp. 177–190; D. Smaltz, V. Sambamurthy and R. Agarwal, ‘The antecedents of CIO role effectiveness in organizations: An empirical study in the healthcare sector’, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, Vol. 53, 2006, pp. 207–222; D. Preston, D. Chen and D. Leidner, ‘Examining the antecedents and consequences of CIO strategic decision-making authority: An empirical study’, Decision Sciences, Vol. 39, 2008, 605–642; D.S. Preston, D. Leidner and D. Chen, ‘CIO leadership profiles: Implications of matching CIO authority and leadership capability on IT impact’, MIS Quarterly Executive, Vol. 7, No. 2, 2008, pp. 57–69; M. Chun and J. Mooney, ‘CIO roles and responsibilities: Twenty-five years of evolution and change’, Information & Management, Vol. 46, 2009, pp. 323–334; J. Peppard, ‘Unlocking the performance of the chief information officer (CIO)’, California Management Review, Vol. 52, No. 4, 2010, pp. 73–99; J. Peppard, C. Edwards and R. Lambert, ‘Clarifying the ambiguous role of the CIO, MIS Quarterly Executive, Vol. 10, No. 1, 2011, pp. 197–201; J.L. King, ‘CIO: Concept is over’, Journal of Information Technology, Vol. 26, 2011, pp. 129–138 and P. Weill and S.L. Woerner, ‘The future of the CIO in a digital economy’, MIS Quarterly Executive, Vol. 12, No. 2, 2013, pp. 65–75.
- 2.
The failure rate for IT projects has remained remarkably high over the decades. For some recent failures, see UK Government’s report into the failure of the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) and the Home Office to modernize the services the DBS provides to the public and employers, House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts, Disclosure and Barring Service: Progress Review, Published on May 1, 2019. F. Kolf and C. Kerkmann, ‘Lidl software disaster another example of Germany’s digital failure’, Handelsblatt, July 30, 2017, https://www.handelsblatt.com/today/companies/programmed-for-disaster-lidl-software-disaster-another-example-of-germanys-digital-failure/23582902.html; for some examples from Australia, see M. Ludlow, ‘IT disasters now part of modern life’, Financial Review, December 21, 2016, https://www.afr.com/technology/it-disasters-now-part-of-modern-life-20160628-gptyw6 and J. Sweeney and D. Korber, Crash Course: Failure to Heed Early Warnings, Troubles of the Past Contributed to Payroll System Collapse, A Report Prepared for Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Subcommittee No. 4, California Senate Office of Oversight and Outcomes, August 12, 2013.
- 3.
For data on success rates of digital transformation see J.-F. Martin, Unlocking Success in Digital Transformation, McKinsey & Company, October 2018; B. Rogers, ‘Why 84% of companies fail at digital transformation’, Forbes, January 7, 2017, https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucerogers/2016/01/07/why-84-of-companies-fail-at-digital-transformation/#352e65d397bd and J. Macaulay, ‘Most digital transformation fail, here’s how to change’, CEO World Magazine, March 30, 2019, https://ceoworld.biz/2019/03/30/most-digital-transformations-fail-heres-how-to-change-that/
- 4.
See S. Rosenbush, ‘CIOs, facing rapid change, tend to be younger, with shorter tenure’, The Wall Street Journal, February 14, 2017 https://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2017/02/14/cios-facing-rapid-change-tend-to-be-younger-with-shorter-tenure/ and ‘CIO stats: Length of CIO tenure varies by industry’, The Wall Street Journal, February 15, 2017, available at https://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2017/02/15/cio-stats-length-of-cio-tenure-varies-by-industry
- 5.
G. Bock, K. Carpenter and J.E. Davis, ‘Management’s newest star: Meet the chief information officer’, Business Week, 2968, October 1986, pp. 160–172. It should be pointed out that as early as 1984, there was a suggestion that one-third of US corporations had a CIO role, if not in title. See Diebold Research Group, Chief Information Officer Concept, DRG, New York, 1984. Fast forward to June 2010, and Fortune magazine, another barometer of C-suite thinking, ran a story ‘Tech executives stop cutting and get strategic’. This article posed the question “with the economy growing, CEOs want chief information officers to help with marketing and sales, are the techies ready to step up?” One year later, Fortune ran another piece “Technology chiefs belong in the C-suite”, this time pointing out that CIOs are not just tech buyers but strategic thinkers.
- 6.
Electronic Data Processing.
- 7.
Applegate and Elam suggest that the rise of the CIO marked the transition from the data processing era to the information era. See L. Applegate and J. Elam, ‘New information systems leaders: A changing role in a changing world’, MIS Quarterly, Vol. 16, No. 4, 1992, pp. 469–490.
- 8.
M.E. Porter and V. Miller, ‘How information gives you a competitive advantage’, Harvard Business Review, July–August 1985, pp. 149–160. See also F. Warren McFarlan, ‘Information technology changes the way you compete’, Harvard Business Review, May–June 1984, p. 98.
- 9.
See L.M. Applegate, ‘Frito-Lay, Inc.: A Strategic Transition (A) (Updated)’, Harvard Business School Case 193–129, February 1993 (revised March 1993). F.W. McFarlan and Donna B. Stoddard, ‘OTISLINE (A)’, Harvard Business School Case 186–304, June 1986 (revised July 1990). B. Konsynski and M.R. Vitale, ‘Baxter Healthcare Corp.: ASAP Express’, Harvard Business School Case 188–080, February 1988 (revised February 1991) and M. Hopper, ‘Rattling SABRE—New ways to compete on information’, Harvard Business Review, May–June 1990.
- 10.
J. Rothfeder, and L. Driscoll, ‘CIO is starting to stand for Career Is Over’, Business Week, February 26, 1990.
- 11.
M. Hammer, ‘Reengineering work: Don’t automate, obliterate’, Harvard Business Review, July–August 1990, pp. 104–112.
- 12.
Back in the 1980s economist Robert Solow wrote about the so-called productivity paradox “you can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics”. R. Solow, ‘We’d better watch out’, New York Times Book Review, July 12, 1987, p. 36. There is a long history of IT investments underachieving or failing outright. See P.A. Strassman, The Squandered Computer: Evaluating the Business Alignment of Information Technology, The Economics Press, New Canaan, Connecticut, 1997 and Information Productivity: Accessing the Information Management Costs of US Industrial Companies, The Economics Press, New Canaan, Connecticut, 1997. See also A. Von Nievelt, ‘Managing with IT: A decade of wasted money?’ Information Strategy: The Executive’s Journal, Vol. 9, No. 4, 1993, pp. 5–17; Productivity in the United States, 1995–2000, McKinsey Global Institute, October 2001; Butler Group, ‘IT spending and profits are unrelated’, Butler Concept Report on The Economics of Information, London, July 2001 and Standish Group work on IT project management at www.Standishgroup.com
- 13.
C. Tiernan and J. Peppard, ‘Information technology: Of value or a vulture?’ European Management Journal, Vol. 22, No. 6, 2004, pp. 609–623; C. Sauer, ‘Deciding the future for IS failure: Not they choice you might think’, in W. Currie and R.D. Galliers, eds., Rethinking MIS, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1997; C. Clegg, C. Axtell, L. Damadoran, B. Farbey, R. Hull, R. Lloyd-Jones, J. Nicholls, R. Sell and C. Tomlinson, ‘Information technology: A study of performance and the role of human and organizational factors’, Ergonomics, Vol. 40, No. 9, pp. 851–871; The Challenges of Complex IT Projects, The Royal Academy of Engineering, London, 2003 and C. Sauer and C. Cuthbertson, The State of IT Project Management in the UK, Templeton College, University of Oxford, November 2003.
- 14.
T. Davenport, ‘The fad that forgot people’, Fast Company, November 1995. https://www.fastcompany.com/26310/fad-forgot-people
- 15.
Commentary by D. Lapore, J. Rockart, M.J. Earl, T. Thomas, P. McAteer and J. Elton, in R.F. Maruca, ‘Are CIOs obsolete?’, Harvard Business Review, March–April 2000, pp. 56–63.
- 16.
L.M. Applegate, ‘Eastman Kodak Co.: Managing information systems through strategic alliances’, Harvard Business School Case 192–030, July 1991 (revised September 1995). See also L. Loh and N. Venkatraman, ‘Diffusion of information technology outsourcing: Influence sources and the Kodak effect’, Information Systems Research, Vol. 3, No. 4, 1992, pp. 334–358 and R. Plant, ‘A Kodak moment to reconsider the value of IT’, Harvard Business Review, October 12, 2011.
- 17.
N. Carr, ‘IT doesn’t matter’, Harvard Business Review, May 2003, pp. 5–12. Carr later went on to predict the end of corporate computing. See N. Carr, ‘The end of corporate computing’, MIT Sloan Management Review, 46, 3, 2005, pp. 67–73.
- 18.
In August 2011, Marc Andreessen wrote an article in The Wall Street Journal titled ‘Why software is eating the world’ that generated considerable attention. Andreessen wrote “My own theory is that we are in the middle of a dramatic and broad technological and economic shift in which software companies are poised to take over large swathes of the economy. More and more major businesses and industries are being run on software and delivered as online services—from movies to agriculture to national defense. Many of the winners are Silicon Valley-style entrepreneurial technology companies that are invading and overturning established industry structures. Over the next 10 years, I expect many more industries to be disrupted by software, with new world-beating Silicon Valley companies doing the disruption in more cases than not.”
- 19.
The General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 is a regulation in EU law on data protection and privacy for all individual citizens of the European Union and the European Economic Area. It also addresses the transfer of personal data outside the EU and EEA areas. See https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection/reform_en?
- 20.
C. Ciborra, ‘The grassroots of IT and strategy’, in C. Ciborra and T. Jelessi, eds, Strategic Information Systems: A European Perspective, John Wiley & Sons, Chichester, UK, 1994, 3–24.
- 21.
Michael Earl in R.F. Maruca, ‘Are CIOs obsolete?’, Harvard Business Review, March–April, 2000.
- 22.
See M.L. Kaarst-Brown, ‘Understanding an organization’s view of the CIO: The role of assumptions about IT’, MIS Quarterly Executive, Vol. 4, No. 2, 2005, pp. 287–301.
- 23.
For a fuller discussion of this topic see J. Peppard, ‘Unlocking the performance of the chief information officer (CIO)’, California Management Review, Vol. 52, No. 4, 2010, pp. 73–99.
- 24.
J. Peppard, ‘The conundrum of IT management’, European Journal of Information Systems, Vol. 16, Issue 4, 2007, pp. 336–345.
- 25.
For study of CIO reporting structure and organizational performance, see R. Banker, N. Hu, P. Pavlou and J. Luftman, ‘CIO reporting structure, strategic positioning, and firm performance’, MIS Quarterly, Vol. 35, No. 2, 2011, pp. 487–504.
- 26.
W.R. Synott, and W.H. Gruber, Information Resource Management, John Wiley & Sons, 1981, p. 66.
- 27.
P.A. Gonzalez, L. Ashworth and J. McKeen, ‘The CIO stereotype: Content, bias, and impact’, Journal of Strategic Information Systems, Vol. 28, 2019, pp. 83–99 and L. Willcoxson and R. Chatham, ‘Testing the accuracy of the IT stereotype: Profiling IT managers’ personality and behavioral characteristics’, Information & Management, Vol. 43, 2006, pp. 697–705.
- 28.
Z. Kunda, Social Cognition: Making Sense of People, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1999.
- 29.
P.A. Gonzalez, L. Ashworth and J. McKeen, ‘The CIO stereotype: Content, bias, and impact’, Journal of Strategic Information Systems, Vol. 28, 2019, pp. 83–99.
- 30.
For more on the topic of organizational politics for IT executives see K. Patching and R. Chatham, Corporate Politics for IT Managers: How to Get Streetwise, Butterworth-Heinemann, 2000.
- 31.
L. Willcoxson and R. Chatham, ‘Testing the accuracy of the IT stereotype: Profiling IT managers’ personality and behavioral characteristics’, Information & Management, Vol. 43, 2006, pp. 697–705.
- 32.
D.Q. Chen, D.S. Preston and W. Xia, ‘Antecedents and effects of CIO supply-side and demand-side leadership: A staged maturity model’, Journal of Management Information Systems, Vol. 27, pp. 231–272 and M.L. Kaarst-Brown, ‘Understanding an organization’s view of the CIO: The role of assumptions about IT’, MIS Quarterly Executive, Vol. 4, pp. 287–301.
- 33.
M. Heller, The CIO Paradox: Battling the Contradictions of IT Leadership, Bibliomotion, Brookline, MA, 2012.
- 34.
Confusingly, CDO also signifies chief data officer.
- 35.
Irving Wladawsky-Berger, ‘Why CIOs may morph into the chief digital officer’, Wall Street Journal Blogs, November 18, 2012. https://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2012/11/18/why-cios-may-morph-into-the-chief-digital-officer/
- 36.
This also seems to be the picture we are seeing from the Harvey Nash/KPMG CIO Survey, 2019.
- 37.
Harvey Nash/KPMG CIO Survey, 2019.
- 38.
For an early study of CIO roles, see V. Grover, S.R. Jeong, W. Kettinger and C.C. Lee, ‘The chief information officer: A study of managerial roles’, Journal of Management Information Systems, Vol. 10, No. 2, 1993, pp. 107–130.
- 39.
J. Peppard, C. Edwards and R. Lambert, ‘Clarifying the ambiguous role of the CIO’, MIS Quarterly Executive, Vol. 10, No. 1, 2011, pp. 197–201. See also Y. Gong, M. Janssen, V. Weerakkody, ‘Current and expected roles and capabilities of CIOs for the innovation and adoption of new technology’, Proceedings of the 20th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research, Dubai, United Arab Emirates—June 18–20, 2019, pp. 462–467.
- 40.
For a thorough review of CIO roles see A. Hutter and R. Riedl, Chief Information Officer Role Effectiveness: Literature Review and Implications for Research and Practice, Springer, Cham, Switzerland, 2017. See also J. Peppard, C. Edwards and R. Lambert, ‘Clarifying the ambiguous role of the CIO’, MIS Quarterly Executive, Vol. 10, No. 1, 2011, pp. 197–201; D. Smaltz, V. Sambamurthy and R. Agarwal, ‘The antecedents of CIO role effectiveness in organizations: An empirical study in the healthcare sector’, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, Vol. 53, 2006, pp. 207–222 and M. Carter, V. Grover and J.B. Thatcher, ‘The emerging CIO role of business technology strategist’, MIS Quarterly Executive, Vol. 10, No. 1, 2011, pp. 19–29.
- 41.
See S. Kien, C. Soh, P. Weil and Y. Chong, Rewiring the Enterprise for Digital Innovation: The Case of DBS Bank, Nanyang Business School, Publication Number ABCC-2015-004.
- 42.
- 43.
T.C. Tubre, and J.M. Collins, ‘Jackson and Schuler (1985) revisited: A meta-analysis of the relationships between role ambiguity, role conflict, and job performance’, Journal of Management, Vol. 26, No. 1, 2000, pp. 155–169.
- 44.
E. Karahanna and R. Watson, ‘Information systems leadership’, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, Vol. 53, 2006, pp. 171–176.
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Gerth, T., Peppard, J. (2020). The Ambiguity of the CIO Role. In: Taking the Reins as CIO. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-31953-3_1
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