Important CIO Features for Successfully Managing IS Sub-fuctions

Abstract

The importance of and the fast changes in the CIO’s role in organizations are widely recognized. So is the need for CIOs to acquire the appropriate set of knowledge and managerial skills to lead the organization’s effort in effectively using information technology. This study is based on an extensive survey of the literature addressing the desirable features of modern CIOs, and the impact of such features on the management performance of the IS department main activities or sub-functions. To empirically test the importance of the CIO features, a questionnaire was mailed to the CEO of 2,000 companies in Northern Italy providing a usable sample of 158 respondents. The direct relationships between the CIO features identified in this study and their managerial performance in the areas of IS department human resources, operational management, strategic management, relationship management, and organizational management were corroborated. The results provide some insights on the desirable features for modern CIOs, which in turn can be useful for CIO recruiting and professional development.