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Cio Leadership Profiles

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CIO Leadership Profiles: Implications of Matching CIO Authority and Leadership Capability on IT Impact Q E CIO LeadershIp prOfILes: ImpLICatIOns Of MIS Uarterly matChIng CIO authOrIty and LeadershIp xecutive CapabILIty On It ImpaCt1 Executive Summary Ultimately, organizations invest in information technology (IT) initiatives to improve their level of performance. However, there have been mixed results from the payoff of IT investments. This article presents evidence that the variation in benefits derived from IT is in part due to the organization’s CIO leadership profile. This profile is determined by whether the CIO’s level of strategic decision-making authority is high or low, and whether his or her strategic leadership …show more content…

Given the potential importance of the CIO within the modern organization, as well as recent attention given to this topic, our findings provide criteria that enable an organization to examine its current CIO leadership profile and balance its return on IT investments. only in IT strategic planning, but in business strategic planning as well.6 These disparities in the roles of CIOs across organizations are supported by the following statement from a CIO of a major Midwestern university, who was interviewed as part of our study. He said: “In my years networking with various executives, I still find that many firms have completely different views on the strategic role of the CIO. In some organizations the purpose of the CIO is purely operational—he is there to essentially fix the pipes like a plumber. In other organizations, the CIO is considered to be a true strategic leader. In many organizations, the CIO may be stuck somewhere in the middle of this range.” CLASSIFyING CIO LEADERSHIP PROFILES We have classified CIO leadership on two dimensions: • • The CIO’s strategic decision-making authority within the organization. The CIO’s strategic leadership capability. The Leadership Capability Dimension CIOs who have the authority to pursue strategic IT initiatives need to be capable leaders to successfully execute strategic projects; otherwise, the consequences for the organization could be problematic. Many CIOs

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