A new model for chief information officer role effectiveness in digital enterprises.

Abstract

Relatively high turnover rates for CIOs have endured since the role was conceived in the 1980s. Whilst the CIO has been studied as IT leadership and management research since the 1980s, a coherent theory to explain CIO role effectiveness has eluded practitioners. The author believes that rapidly changing expectations for an already ambiguous role, continuing use of inappropriate performance assessment frameworks, coupled with lack of personal development opportunities, represent major factors for continued demotivation and turnover. To help address Chief Information Officer (CIO) demotivation and reduce the impact of CIO turnover, the author developed and validated a new CIO role effectiveness model. The author conducted a literature review and analysed UK CIO job advertisements as a means for capturing changing expectations for the CIOs behaviours and attributes. The result was developed into a conceptual model that was validated through a survey with participation from 82 UK CIOs, and 106 CIO stakeholders. Comparing expectations, the author finds that, as environments become increasingly dynamic and levels of digital maturity increase, most CIOs and their stakeholders expect: (i) that CIOs will transition their behaviours from change orientated behaviours towards relationship orientated behaviours; (ii) to agree more on the importance of the CIOs personal (demographic) attributes, the CIOs conceptual, human, and technical skills, the CIOs knowledge about stakeholders, IT and the business, and how CIOs should be assessed and (hence motivated). The author also finds continued disagreement about what CIOs are expected to learn and the sources of that learning. Acknowledging that expectations relate to changing situational variables, the author concludes that, whilst the new CIO effectiveness model doesn’t represent a deterministic solution for the relationships between expected behaviours and attributes, it does provide a new means for mentoring CIOs and their stakeholders, for their given situation, to identify and address misalignment in expectations for CIO effectiveness.