25 Years of CIO and IT Leadership – Revisiting Managerial Roles in Information Systems Research

Knowledge-intensive organizations are challenged by the digitization of business models and the need for IT knowledge throughout whole organizations. This changes the role of CIOs from a central IT leader towards a digitization ambassador for the whole organization. In this research, we develop and validate a multidimensional IT leadership roles construct, which is theoretically based on Mintzberg’s managerial roles. We empirically evolve the construct based on a quantitative survey among 228 CIOs in the U.S., where we assess the management roles of prior information systems research. Based on the empirical analysis, we add a new role definition. The result is an updated, comprehensive, and modernized IT leadership construct, that takes the role of the CIO not only as IT leader, but as central agency for developing a digital mindset in the top management team but also throughout the whole organization. Thus, we contribute with our research on IT leadership, IT capabilities, IT knowledge, and IT decision making and planning to 25 years of information systems research in that field.