Clarifying the ambiguous role of the CIO

MIS Quarterly Executive

Volumn 10, Issue 1, 2011, Pages 31-44

  Peppard, Joe ^a   Edwards, Chris ^a   Lambert, Rob ^a  

^a CRANFIELD UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 79955963576     PISSN: 15401960     EISSN: 15401979     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (28)

1. Ritu Agarwal is the accepting Senior Editor for this article.
2. For academic studies exploring the changing nature of the CIO role published in the 1980s and early 1990s, see the list of selected Further Readings at the end of this article.
3. See Rothfeder, J. and Driscoll, L. "CIO is Starting to Stand for Career Is Over," Business Week, February 26, 1990.
4. Applegate and Elam (1992) suggest that the rise of the CIO marked the transition from the data processing era to the information era (see Further Readings list at the end of this article).
5. See also. Porter, M. E. and Miller, V. " How Information Gives You a Competitive Advantage," Harvard Business Review, July-August 1985, pp. 149-160.
6. William Synott is generally credited with coining the label "chief information officer" in a speech at the 1980 Information Management Exposition and Conference. Synott predicted that " The manager of information systems in the 1980s has to be Superhuman-retaining his technology cape, but doffing the technical suit for a business suit and becoming one of the chief executives of the firm. The job of chief information officer (CIO)-equal in rank to chief executive and chief financial officer-does not exist today, but the CIO will identify, collect, and manage information as a resource, set corporate information policy, and affect all office and distributed systems." In 1986, Business Week ran a story announcing the arrival of the CIO.
7. See Bock, G., Carpenter, K. and Davis, J. E "Management's Newest Star: Meet the Chief Information Officer," Business Week, 2968, October, 1986, pp. 160-172.
8. Mark and Rau have suggested that companies can get more productivity from their IT by dividing IT into demand and supply organizations.
9. See Mark, D. and Rau, D. " Splitting Demand from Supply in IT," McKinsey on IT, Fall 2006, pp. 22-19.
10. See also Roberts, R., Sarrazin, H., and Sikes, J. "Reshaping IT Management for Turbulent Times," McKinsey Quarterly, December 2010.
11. The term "hybrid manager" was first coined by Peter Keen in 1988, and the concept was defined by Michael Earl as "people with strong technical skills and adequate business knowledge, or visa versa ... hybrids are people with technical skills able to work in user areas doing a line or functional job but adept at developing and supplementing IT application ideas."
12. See Keen, P. G. "Rebuilding the Human Resources of IS," in Earl, M. J. Information Management: The Strategic Dimension, Oxford University Press, 1988.
13. Earl, M. J. Management Strategies for Information Technology, Prentice-Hall, 1989.
14. See Kaarst-Brown, M. L. "Understanding an Organization's View of the CIO: The Role of Assumptions About IT," MIS Quarterly Executive (4:2), 2005, pp. 287-301.
15. Ross, J. and Weill, P. "Six IT Decisions Your IT People Shouldn't Make," Harvard Business Review (80:11), 2002, pp. 84-92.
16. For a fuller discussion of this topic, see Peppard, J. "Unlocking the Performance of the Chief Information Officer (CIO)," California Management Review (52:4), 2010, pp. 73-99.
17. See Mark, D. and Monnoyer, E. "Next-generation CIOs," McKinsey on IT, Spring 2004, pp. 2-8.
18. Today's Challenges, Tomorrow's CIO, IBM Global Business Services, 2008.
19. See Agarwal, R. and Beath, C. Grooming the 2010 CIO, A Report for the Society for Information Management Advanced Practices Council, 2007.
20. Enns, H. G., McFarlin D. B., and Huff, S. L. "How CIOs Can Effectively Use Influence Behaviors," MIS Quarterly Executive (6:1), 2007, pp. 29-38.
21. According to some researchers, CIO characteristics explain a large proportion of the variance in organizations' innovative use of IT.
22. See Li, Y., Tan, C.-H., Teo, H. H., and Tan, B. C. "Innovative Usage of Information Technology in Singapore Organizations: Do CIO Characteristics Make a Difference?," IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management (53:2), 2006, pp. 177-190.
23. Preston, D. S., Leidner, D., and Chen, D. "CIO Leadership Profiles: Implications of Matching CIO Authority and Leadership Capability on IT Impact," MIS Quarterly Executive (7:2), 2008, pp. 57-69.
24. Synott, W. R. and Gruber, W. H. Information Resource Management, John Wiley & Sons, 1981, p. 66.
25. This role has strong resonance with the "keep-it-running CIO" identified by Leidner and Mackay.
26. See Leidner, D. E. and Mackay, J. M. "How Incoming CIOs Transition into Their New Jobs," MIS Quarterly Executive (6:1), 2007, pp. 17-28.
27. Tubre, T. C. and Collins, J. M. "Jackson and Schuler (1985) Revisited: A Meta-Analysis of the Relationships Between Role Ambiguity, Role Conflict, and Job Performance," Journal of Management (26:1), 2000, pp. 155-169.
28. For more on IT governance, see Weill, P. "Don't Just Lead, Govern: How Top-Performing Firms Govern IT," MIS Quarterly Executive (3:1), 2004, pp. 1-17.