IT management capability and its impact on the performance of a CIO

Information & Management 48 (2011) 145–156

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Information & Management journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/im

IT management capability and its impact on the performance of a CIO Yi-Cheng Chen a, Jen-Her Wu b,* a b

Department of Information Science and Management Systems, National Taitung University, 684, Sec. 1, Chunghua Rd., Taitung, Taiwan, ROC Department of Information Management, National Sun Yat-Sen University, 70 Lien-Hai Rd., Kaohsiung 804, Taiwan

A R T I C L E I N F O

A B S T R A C T

Article history: Available online 19 April 2011

Viewed from the perspective of the activity competency model (ACM) and prior theoretical works, we developed a conceptual framework for investigating the capability of IT management personnel and its impact on the performance of a CIO. A scale for measuring a CIO’s effectiveness and management capability was developed and validated. A partial least squares method was used to test the conceptual model empirically and hypotheses were tested through data collected in a large-scale survey. The results supported the proposed framework, and confirmed our hypotheses that both IT and managerial competencies have positive significant impact on the effectiveness of a CIO. We also found that his or her IT management capability significantly impacted the CIO’s performance. Our findings are likely to be of particular value to those concerned with IT management training and competency development for CIOs. ß 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Chief information officer Information technology management Role performance Activity competency model Competency development

1. Introduction Today’s ITs are ubiquitous and prevalent across a variety of business enterprise functions and processes. The integration of IT and IS with business operations has been widely recognized as a requirement in creating business values, seed new market opportunities, facilitating process innovation, and helping to shape business vision and strategy in order to gain competitive advantages for an organization [21]. The need for cooperation between IT and business managers involves agreement in the way that they share the risks, responsibilities, and decision right of strategic IT applications. Without this, the distribution of responsibility and accountability among the IT and business units of the firm is unlikely to be effective in acquiring, deploying, and leveraging its IT resources effectively. Although many small and medium firms have aligned technology applications with business operations, few have successfully integrated their IT and business units these applications with their business, and still less have made sure that their technology and business leadership operate in concert for both the strategic and tactical modes. Understanding how to align, synchronize, and converge the spaces of business and IT is thus becoming a critical issue confronting senior IT executives in modern firms. As high level IT leaders in large organizations, CIOs act as business innovators and catalysts for change. They must alert their

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +886 7 525 2000x4722; fax: +886 7 525 4799. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (Y.-C. Chen), [email protected] (J.-H. Wu). 0378-7206/$ – see front matter ß 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.im.2011.04.001

business counterparts to potential opportunities resulting from new emerging IT methods and help to persuade them to become business innovation champions, while agreeing for a need for extra resources for new IT initiatives [18]. A capable CIO must therefore not only be an effective IT leader, but also be a first class intermediary between the IT and business/sectors of the organization. CIOs should be good at prioritizing IT initiatives, building IT-related business strategies, and helping their business peers in understanding the need for IT investments, helping prioritize business requirements, and ensuring effective use of critical IT assets, probably in coordination with the CTO. As such, the technical-business orientation must ensure interfacing of the IT units with all other departments of the organization. This poses unique challenges and opportunities for CIOs. Hence, modern CIOs need to have a broad understanding of both IT governance and business practices, as well as possess the related competencies. A CIO is one of the toughest professional level positions in the firm today: at the same level in governmental and commercial organizations as vice presidents and other top management team (TMT) members, such as the CEO, COO, CFO, but having a rather rapid turnover rate [10]. This may result in some IT executives having a good understanding of business in general, but not of the distinguishing details of the specific business that they serve. In fact, the majority of today’s CIOs still lack broad business understanding, strategic vision, and the interpersonal skills that it takes to run a company, or play a bigger role in running it. CIOs are key agents in championing the use of the entire spectrum of IT methods in order to ensure that business applications deliver high ROI. Today’s CIOs are expected to help integrate IT functions with business operations to construct appropriate organizational

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structures, processes, and human skills to exploit IT as a strategic differentiator. Many researchers and committees have proposed the set of basic skills and management practices needed by CIOs in aligning, synchronizing, and converging technology and business management, and in helping them work with other VPs in shaping business goals. However, the impact of these capabilities on CIO role performance has not been investigated [12]. Indeed, even though IT is often considered a driver of change within human resources (HR), few studies have addressed the relationship between IT and CIOs’ HR-based capabilities, role performance, and IT management effectiveness. Prior research on overall CIO effectiveness has generally recorded the factors that are associated with high-performance CIOs, without measuring their effectiveness. Other studies have used some readily measurable constructs, such as the extent of IT use and of IT deployment as barometers of the CIOs’ IT management activity effectiveness. However, deploying IT is often not enough to make the CEO and other TMT members view the CIO as effective in their firm. To be perceived as with high-performance in their roles, CIOs need to perform the related IT management activities. We therefore first define IT management activity effectiveness as the degree to which a CIO can apply well-defined processes, appropriate organizational structures, information, and supporting technologies to drive organizations closer to the goal of business and technology unification. Researchers have exerted very little attention to investigating the causal relationships among CIOs’ skills/knowledge (competencies), activity effectiveness, and role performance. Prior research has not addressed the key issues of competency development with respect to the nature of IT management capability and its influence on CIO role performance. The purpose of our research was, therefore, to address two research questions: (1) What are the areas of knowledge/skills that characterize CIOs’ IT management capability for information technology management? (2) What is the contribution of CIOs’ IT management capability for information technology management towards improving their role performance? 2. Theoretical development and research framework 2.1. Activity competency model and empowerment theory According to job characteristics theory (JCT), people who have sufficient knowledge and skills to do a good job feel positive about their performance, while people who do not have negative feelings. The need for personal competency becomes important because it helps employees develop better internal motivation, especially for

those that work on a challenging job. One of the critical characteristics that contribute to a person’s feelings is that his or her work is useful or meaningful to others. Skill variety is the degree to which a particular job requires a variety of different activities in order to be successful in performing the task; Knowledge and skills are key job characteristics that contribute to a person’s psychological state, and enhance internal motivation and effective performance. Wu et al. [25] proposed an activity competency model (ACM) that may be used to help the IS manager understand his or her critical activities and what skills and knowledge they need to accomplish them; see Fig. 1. At the top of the ACM are the IS managers’ roles and functions, which, at the next level determine the managerial activities performed by IS managers. Proficiency in each of these critical activities depends on a command of the elemental competencies at the bottom level. These skill sets and knowledge are the fundamental competencies contributing to the organization’s success. Viewed from the ACM’s perspective, a skill or knowledge is an ability that can be developed; is not necessarily inborn; and is manifested in performance, not merely in potential. However, ability at a lower level is likely to support more than one activity or role at a higher level. CIOs, who are the top level IS executives in organizations, assume the critical responsibility for successfully integrating IT resources with business processes, possibly in collaboration with the CTO. Today’s CIOs must be able to recognize the important scope of their own responsibilities and the contributions of their jobs, and thus be able to enhance their personal performance. In our study, the ACM provided a strong basis and an instrumental guideline for our exploration of the relationships among CIOs’ skills/knowledge, IT management activity effectiveness, and role performance. Many theorists have identified empowerment as a construct of self-efficacy or self-determination/autonomy analogous to agency beliefs, personal mastery, or effort performance expectancy in one’s ability to perform work activities due to personal skills or knowledge [17]. In the new economy, global competition and business re-engineering have driven organizations to increase their intra-personal empowerment. Organizations have allowed their employees to take initiatives, embrace risks, and innovate. These conditions are particularly relevant in executive positions, where managerial responsibilities are more complex, ambiguous, and ill-defined rather than routine. Specifically, empowerment will contribute to role performance in positions where work processes are no longer driven by formal rules and procedures. Based on empowerment theory, an individual with a stronger sense of empowerment/might be viewed by others as more effective. Thus, CIOs with higher levels of business acumen will perceive themselves as capable of influencing their working

Fig. 1. Activity competency model and theoretical backgrounds.

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Fig. 2. The framework of IT management capability of CIOs.

environment in meaningful ways and thus will be likely to be proactive in executing their work responsibilities, and thus to be seen as effective. In this sense, effectiveness can be defined as the degree to which an individual fulfills or exceeds his or her own expectations about the working role. 2.2. IT management capability of CIOs Willcocks and Feeny [22] defined a capability as ‘‘a distinctive set of human resource-based skills, motivations, and behaviors that have the potential, in suitable contexts, to contribute to achieving specific activities and influencing business performance’’. They further argued that ‘‘a core IS capability is a capability needed to facilitate the exploitation of IT, measurable in terms of IT activities supported, and resulting in business performance’’. Conceived in this way, a capability can be regarded as a concept encompassing the possession of skills/knowledge for the effective execution of specific activities. Explicitly, the skills/ knowledge possessed by an individual are the antecedents that can influence effectiveness in specific activities. Based on the concepts of ACM and empowerment theory, we developed a framework of IT management capability, and suggested that the levels of IT and management competencies influence IT management activity effectiveness, as shown in Fig. 2. As a core member of the TMT, the CIO is involved in all functional areas of the contemporary organization. Therefore, it is important for a CIO to develop a broad competency in the field of business management. Explicitly, today’s CIOs must possess fundamental business domain knowledge to deal with the challenges of the changing environment. We therefore took account of the skills and/knowledge in business and technology management as important to CIOs in achieving effectiveness in critical IT management activities. These broad categories of skills and knowledge that form the overall competency themselves incorporate other categories of knowledge. Our proposed taxono-

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my is therefore based on the integration and reorganization of recommendations from various studies, as shown in Table 1. The skills/knowledge relating to IT competency of the CIOs allows them to configure, implement, apply, and evaluate IT, in order to establish an enterprise-wide IT infrastructure, on which various business applications are based, and hence integrating the IT functions with critical business processes [19]. This permits CIOs to deliver a business capability or automate a business operation. In accordance with our taxonomy, three domains of skills/ knowledge were included in the category of IT competency. The domain of IT infrastructure skills/knowledge encompassed the ability of a CIO to configure, implement, apply, and evaluate the existing and emerging information and communication technologies (probably with the CTO) in order to construct an integrated and reliable IT infrastructure [20]. The domain of business applications skills/knowledge refers to the ability of a CIO to apply an integrated set of available and reliable IT infrastructure components, services, or functions in order to achieve all business objectives, which involves supporting both existing applications (legacy systems) and new initiatives; connecting different business functional units in a value chain; and linking to suppliers, customers, and strategic allies in a complicated supply network. The domain of IT–business integration skills/knowledge stands for the ability of a CIO to visualize the ways in which various kinds of technologies can contribute to the organization’s performance, and help to provide synergies between IS/IT and organizational performance. CIOs with higher levels of skill/knowledge in IT are better able to advise their TMTs about IT issues, such as appropriate technologies, their timing, and the level of investment. CIOs are more likely to be able to integrate IT functions with core business processes, with the goals of initiating lean and agile operations and delivering organization-wide IT management capabilities. We argue that CIOs with superior IT competency will achieve a higher level of effectiveness in executing related IT management activities. Therefore, we proposed the hypothesis: H1. CIOs’ superior IT competency will positively associate with IT management activity effectiveness. Drawing on prior research on business management skills/ knowledge, we deduced three domains of skills/knowledge that represent CIOs’ management competency: business domain knowledge, interpersonal skills, and business management practices skills/ knowledge. Business domain knowledge stands for a CIO’s understanding of the holistic organizational settings in which IT is deployed, and of the connections between IT and his or her organization. This knowledge represents the ability of CIOs to ‘‘see

Table 1 Taxonomy of IT competency and management competency. Taxonomy of IT competency and management competency

[1]

[2]

[7]

[15]

[23]

– –

IT infrastructure Business applications

IT infrastructure IT implementation success Business–IT planning

– Making technology work

IT–business integration

Technology Applications System development Experience in management of IT and IT projects Leadership skills –

Communication

Shared domain knowledge Communication

Business systems thinking

Interpersonal

Organizationspecific Interpersonal

Business management practice

Management

Experience in IT projects

Team-working leaderships

IT competency IT infrastructure Business applications Business–technology integration Management competency Business domain knowledge

Organizational problem solving Business functional area

Business management

Architecture planning

Relationship building Contract facilitation Vendor development Leadership Informed buying Contract monitoring

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the big picture’’ of IT in their organizations and to make connections between different divisions and tasks, ensuring that benefits are realized because off the fit between IT and the specific organizational setting. The domain of interpersonal skills refers to the ability of a CIO to motivate other people, articulate visions and preferences and communicate them to others, handle negotiations, and manage conflicts. In addition, team building is often a critical interpersonal skill. As top IS leaders for the delivery of information services and as agents of change, CIOs are increasingly asked to develop overall strategies and tactics for creating broad-based understanding, and to act as exceptional team players and effective, jargon-free communicators throughout the organization. Business management practices skills/knowledge tap into the abilities related to the execution of business management practices. This category of skills/knowledge refers to the competency of a CIO to act as a leader in dealing with organizational renovation and risk management [8]. CIOs with superior management competencies will be able to understand business priorities, opportunities, and needs for the strategic exploitation of IT. CIOs will be in a better position to align IT with key business processes, maximize the business value of IT, and promote IT-based business innovation [4]. We anticipate that CIOs who have excelled in all three of these dimensions are likely to accomplish all related IS management activities. Therefore, we proposed: H2. CIOs’ superior management competency will positively associate with IT management activity effectiveness. 2.3. Impacts of IT management capability on CIO role performance From an evolutionary viewpoint, Ross and Feeny contended that three forces: executive attitudes, application portfolios, and dominant suppliers, have historically shaped the roles of IS executives in organizations. These explain CIOs’ current responsibilities and may be examined for understanding how the roles of CIOs might evolve. This depends on several factors including: wide changes in the application of technology in the host organization, attitudes of senior executives towards technology, and the characteristics of the major vendors who deliver and service the technologies. After careful consideration of these aspects, eight dimensions of CIO roles were identified (see Table 2). Individuals’ role expectations are influenced by personal attributes and the context of their work. An event may prompt behavior that is associated with the saliency of a particular role; the more salient the role identity, the more meaning, purpose and behavioral guidance the individual derives from its enactment. It is not the existence of roles, but their saliency that affects behavior.

In turn, the more meaning that is derived from a role, the greater the behavioral guidance that ultimately leads to the enactment of behaviors associated with that role. Role-based performance theory has shown that performance evaluations of employees should be associated with salient role expectations in firms in order to determine which individual’s performance should be evaluated. Based on the concept, Smaltz et al. argued that the measurement of CIOs’ performance should focus on their salient roles and gauge the perceptual expectations of TMT members on how their CIOs should perform in their salient roles. A field survey among CIOs and other top executives in the healthcare sector was conducted to examine the effectiveness of the six roles: strategist, relationship architect, integrator, IT educator, utility provider, and information steward. The results indicated that CIOs with superior capabilities in strategic business and IT knowledge, interpersonal communication, and political savvy significantly impacted their role performance; especially with respect to their roles of business strategist, integrator, and relationship architect. In today’s business environment, the alignment of IT with business processes and operations is becoming more difficult and riskier than before [16]. Organizations need expert guidance from their CIOs in assessing and implementing the best emerging technologies, understanding their potential initiatives, and prioritizing their investments in appropriate information technologies. However, rapid evolutions among IT–business partnerships, innovative business models, and emerging IT architectures present fresh challenges to business success. The effectiveness of CIOs in modern firms plays an important role in influencing firms’ success with IT use. As the top IT executive, CIOs must understand strategic business and IT skills to blend business and IT, appreciate their role as a senior executive, and be effective as an agent of innovative change. Thus CIOs with superior IT management capabilities are more likely to be effective in performing their roles, responsibilities, and decision rights. Capable CIOs should be good at prioritizing IT initiatives, building IT-driven business strategies, and helping their business peers supervise IT investments, prioritize business needs, and ensure the effective use of critical IT assets. CIOs will be perceived by their TMTs as being more effective if they can provide the right guidance in investing in IT and managing complex integration. Based on the foregoing discussion, we proposed the following hypothesis: H3. A higher level of IT management activity effectiveness will positively associate with CIO role performance. There are two dimensions to this: (1) a framework of IT management capability which suggests that the CIO’s IT and management competencies influence their IT management effectiveness and (2) a conceptual model, as measured by activity

Table 2 CIO’s salient roles. CIO role

Description

Prior research

Business visionary Business system thinker

To lead the executive team in developing a business vision that captures the opportunities presented by IT To think through new business models and introduce new management processes that leverage the emerging/ enabling IT/IS to achieve strategic alignment between business and technology and integrate firm-wide IT efforts with business purposes and activities To define an organization’s strategic future, who has an unrivalled understanding of the ideas that are being deployed throughout the organization and even outside its boundaries To identify business needs and develops solutions that change business situations and ensure that rapidly evolving technical opportunities are understood, planned, implemented, and strategically exploited in the organization To create the coherent blueprint for a technical platform/infrastructure which responds to present and future business needs

[3,23,24] [3,23,24]

To devise and continuously adapt an IT organization that responded to the business-side (business model/process) realities

[3,13,23,24]

To facilitate the wider dialogue, establishing understanding, trust, and cooperation among business users and IT specialists

[3,23,24]

To strategically deploy external resources in a manner that maximized the effectiveness of internal resources and lowered organizational costs

[3,23,24]

Value configurer Entrepreneur Infrastructure builder Organizational designer Relationship builder Informed buyer

[13,23,24] [3,13,23,24] [3,13,23,24]

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effectiveness, will directly impact CIO role performance, as shown in Fig. 3. 3. Research methodology 3.1. Measurement development In the first stage of our study we constructed a conceptual framework and developed the measures. A review of previous literature provided the starting point for developing the measurement items; as many items as possible were identified from existing scales that fit the construct definitions of our study. Once this list had been generated, we carried out an iterative process of personal interviews with a small group of academic and industrial experts to refine the list. We taped and reviewed the interviews to ensure the quality of data collection. From this, we were able to gauge the clarity of the scale items presented, assess whether the item list effectively captured the desired phenomenon, and ensure that salient CIO roles, important activities, and skills/knowledge were not omitted. This process was continued until no further modifications were necessary. Feedback from the interview processes served as the basis for correcting, refining, and enhancing the experimental scales. This was done to enhance the psychometric properties of the survey instrument. After this, several small-scale pretests (including personal interviews) were conducted with a small group of respondents to ensure the completeness and appropriateness of the scale items. Since there are 18 sub-constructs in forming the three higher-order constructs of the proposed model, our goal was to have a smaller number of items per construct, while maintaining sufficient measurement properties. The basic qualitative criterion concerning construct and content validity could then be assured. All measures were then reviewed by a panel of twelve academic and practical experts to ensure content validity by calculating content validity ratios for each scale item. 3.2. Construct operationalization To operationalize CIO role performance, our focus was placed on the role performance of CIOs in the context of specific roles, behaviors, and responsibilities that are regarded as salient in today’s business environment. The expectations about CIO role performance were partially customized to fit the demands of management practices, since that was the objective of our research. Respondents (i.e., CEOs or TMT members) participating in the study were asked to evaluate their CIOs’ performance with

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respect to specific role activities, behaviors, and responsibilities that had been considered salient in firms. CIO role performance was modeled as a second-order reflective construct, formed by eight salient roles adapted from prior literature. The scale items describing IT management activity effectiveness were adapted from the concept of business technology management capability as proposed by Hoque et al. [9]. In accordance with the ACM model, the construct of IT management activity effectiveness, as influenced by IT and management competencies, can be thought of as the fulfillment of a CIO’s IT management capabilities. This construct was also operationalized as a second-order reflective construct formed by the related IT management capabilities. The IT competency of a CIO was measured by the levels of skills/ knowledge that enable him or her to configure, implement, apply, and evaluate IT, with the purpose of establishing enterprise-wide IT infrastructure, initiate various sorts of business applications, and integrate IT functions with critical business processes. This is crucial to delivering a business capability or automating a business operation. In addition, by adopting the concept of business competency from Bassellier and Benbasat [1], the management competency of CIOs was measured by the level of skills/knowledge that enabled them to understand the domain-specific knowledge of business, speak the language of business, and interact with their business partners in other divisions. Each of these two competency constructs is operationalized as a second-order formative construct that contained three broad domains of skills/knowledge. Misspecification of constructs as formative or reflective can create measurement errors, which in turn affects the structural model [11]. In considering whether the first- or second-order level constructs should be modeled as being reflective or formative, we drew on Jarvis et al.’s criteria: (1) the direction of causality from construct to indicators; (2) the interchangeability of indicators; (3) co-variation among indicators; and (4) the nomological net of construct indicators. The reflective items are believed to be caused by the latent constructs that the reflective items are intended to measure. Inter-correlations between the items are therefore expected. The psychometric properties of the reflective items were examined by analyzing their internal consistency in terms of their convergent and discriminant validity. On the other hand, formative items represent indicators that affect the construct under study. Changes in the construct are therefore not expected to cause any changes in the indicators. As a result, items within a formative construct are not expected to correlate. Tests of convergent and discriminant validity, based on the inter-correlations between lower level factors, are therefore not relevant for evaluating the psychometric properties of formative items.

Fig. 3. Research framework.

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According to Jarvis et al.’s and Kim et al.’s guidelines [14], we modeled the indicators of the first-order level as reflective of their specific area of knowledge/skills, activities, and role performance, since they are significantly correlated among themselves. It makes logical sense that high-performance CIOs need to provide general IS leadership while satisfying the expectations of TMT members that their CIOs perform these salient roles effectively. In the case of the CIO role performance construct, the outcome performance, reflected by the eight salient CIO roles identified from the prior literature, may highly correlate to each other (see Table 3). The same logic applies to the IT management activity effectiveness construct, which measures how a CIO can perform all the related aspects of mutually reinforcing IT management activities that may need to co-vary. As a result, both the CIO role performance and IT management activity effectiveness constructs were modeled as formative on the second-order factor level. Moreover, both of the two competency factors to be verified are the second-order factor models with reflective measures for the first order factors, and formative measures for the second-order factors. We have modeled the items of the first-order level as reflective of their specific area of skills/knowledge, since the firstorder level indicators are significantly correlated among themselves. This supports the fact that these related indicators are a representation of the underlying construct. On the other hand, the second-order level of the two competency factors is modeled as formative, meaning that both factors are formed by, or are the sum of, the areas of knowledge at the lower level. 3.3. Sampling and survey administration The empirical data analyzed for the measurement development and testing of the structural model were collected through a crosssectional survey administered in firms in both Taiwan and China. Table 3 Characteristics of the respondents. Freq. TMT questionnaire (N = 152) Chief executive officer General manager Chief financial officer Executive vice president President Senior manager Sales director Finance director Others CIO questionnaire (N = 152) CIO IT executive president Vice president IT/IS manager MIS/IT director Senior IT manager Others Industry type Manufacturing Service-orientation Number of employees 1–50 50–100 100–500 500–1000 1000 Revenue (NT$ million) 1–50 50–100 100–1000 1000–5000 5000–10,000 >10,000

%

14 36 9 13 27 33 7 10 3

9.2 23.7 5.9 8.6 17.8 21.7 4.6 6.6 2.0

13 17 20 28 31 36 7

8.6 11.2 13.2 18.4 20.4 23.7 4.6

109 43

71.7 28.3

16 16 50 10 60

10.5 10.5 32.9 6.6 39.5

10 7 44 27 24 40

6.6 4.6 28.9 17.8 15.8 26.3

The organizations were purposefully selected from those high-tech companies that have formal MIS departments and global impact. The sample companies were mainly drawn from the databases of the China Credit Information Service Ltd., the most authoritative business investigatory apparatus in Taiwan; and the Strait Exchange Foundation, a non-profit organization that represents the Taiwanese government in gathering statistics and in helping Taiwanese firms that do business with China. Although the majority of the companies have migrated and built their factories in Mainland China or South-east Asia, the headquarters are still located in Taiwan and China. CIOs in these firms were more likely to act in the eight salient roles proposed for our study. The empirical data collected from these targeted companies can well represent the specific features of the business environment between Taiwan and China. Nine hundred and sixty-eight qualified companies from firms in Taiwan and China were randomly selected to constitute a representative sample for our study. The perceptual data were collected through a self-administered questionnaire. Prior to mailing the questionnaires, an invitation letter was sent to the CEOs or TMT members of the target organizations to explain the purpose of the study, and invite them to participate in our survey. Participation was voluntary and volunteers were assured that their individual responses would be confidential. Then, two sets of questionnaires were mailed to CEOs (or TMT member) and CIOs. One set of questionnaires asked CEO (or TMT member) to assess CIO role performance and IT and management competencies. The other asked their CIOs to assess their own levels of IT management activity effectiveness and IT and management competencies. The responses on skill/knowledge levels of IT and management competencies from the TMT members and CIOs were correlated in order to validate the consistency between both sides and to minimize the extent of common method variance bias. The responding TMT members (or CIOs) were asked to pass the second set of questionnaires to their CIOs (or TMT members) to ensure that the responses were valid. The initial survey was mailed in late February 2008, and a postcard reminder was sent to non-responders in the third week of April 2008. After six weeks (in June 2008), a second wave of questionnaires was sent to non-responding firms. In total, we received responses from 218 companies, representing a response rate of 22.5% of the initial sample. However, of the 218 companies, 152 provided paired and valid responses, 39 companies provided responses from only the CIOs and 27 provided responses from only TMT members. To test the consistency of the responses, correlations were computed on the six skill/knowledge domains pertaining to IT and management competencies for those firms from which paired CIO and TMT member responses were received. Factor analytical techniques using SPSS were applied to aggregate factor scores for all of the six skill/knowledge sub-constructs of IT and management competencies. For example, factor scores for skill/knowledge levels in business domain knowledge, interpersonal skills, and management practices were generated in SPSS for the construct of management competency. Scale reliability was achieved on all constructs. These correlations were significant because the coefficients ranged from 0.36 (p < 0.01) for the skill/ knowledge domain of business–technology integration, to 0.51 (p < 0.01) for the domain of management practices. The CIO responses were then used for data analysis because of the potential difficulty in the assessment of one’s competence by others; the chief concern among them being the inherent difficulty of someone in figuring out how much a person truly knows (more than the person can assess himself or herself). Thus, no matter how the competencies are measured, whether by the individual or by someone else, it is not possible to completely eliminate measurement concerns.

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The potential non-response bias was assessed by comparing the early versus late respondents, which were weighed on industry type, revenue, and number of employees. None of the t-statistics were statistically significant (p > 0.05, two-tail tests), thereby suggesting that non-response bias may not exist. As shown in Table 3, the titles borne by the respondents varied from company to company. Whereas the titles of general manager, senior manager and president were the most common titles for the TMT questionnaire respondents; IT/IS manager, MIS/IT director, and senior IT manager were the most common titles for the respondents to CIO questionnaire. 4. Data analysis and results We used a two-phase approach for analyzing the data to test the conceptual framework. First, in the measurement development phase, the psychometric properties of all scales were assessed through confirmatory factor analysis. Next, in the model validation phase, the structural relationships of the conceptual framework were examined; thus the causal relationships among the constructs of CIO role performance, IT management activity effectiveness, and IT and management competencies were validated simultaneously. To minimize the extent of common method variance bias, CIOs were asked to answer questions on their IT management capability and IT management competency. The TMT members were asked to answer questions on CIO role performance and on both competencies. As far as the competencies were concerned, it was likely that there were problems in assessing other people’s competence i.e., it is difficult decide how much another individual knows unless the person is an expert in the field. Hence, no matter how the competencies are measured, it is not possible to alleviate all measurement concerns. However, in order to be more ‘‘neutral’’ in the responses regarding the skill/knowledge levels of CIOs’ IT and management competencies, we took the averaged answers of both CIOs and TMT members for use in model testing and analysis. Since CIOs are often responsible for and involved in a firm’s IT management practices relative to competition, they might provide a better source than TMT members for judgment of a firm’s IT management capability measures. In addition, for the CIO role performance measures, we would argue that TMT members can provide more objective answers than the CIOs themselves. 4.1. Measurement model Considering that our research model involved a large number of latent constructs, we applied the partial least squares (PLS) method

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for data analysis in our study. The PLS technique utilizes a component-based approach for estimation purposes, and it can handle formative constructs, unlike a covariance-based structural equation modeling (SEM) method such as LISREL. In general, PLS places minimal restrictions on measurement scales, sample size, and residual distributions. It is therefore more suitable for explaining complex causal relationships, because it avoids the problems of inadmissible solutions and factor indeterminacy. Gefen and Straub [6] indicated that convergent and discriminant validity can and must be examined in order to capture some of the aspects of the goodness of fit of the measurement model. Thus, the assessment of item loadings, reliability, convergent validity, and discriminant validity was performed for the latent constructs through a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), analyzed by PLSGraph 3.0. Reflective items should be unidimensional in their representation of the latent variable, and therefore correlated with each other. Item loadings should be above 0.707, showing that more than half of the variance was captured by the constructs. To ensure convergent validity, we applied the three criteria: (1) the factor loadings of all indicators should exceed 0.707; (2) the composite reliabilities should exceed 0.7; and (3) the average variance extracted (AVE) by each construct should exceed the variance due to measurement error for that construct. Namely, the AVE values of the related constructs should be above the cut-off value of 0.50. As shown in Table 4, the analysis of the initial set of all scale items showed that there was one item with a loading below the recommended value of 0.707 (i.e., SP5, with a loading of 0.66). That scale item was discarded from the subsequent analyses, in order to achieve a high level of reliability and validity. Then, the CFA technique was applied again for all of the latent constructs in the research model. All constructs in the measurement model exhibited good internal consistency, as evidenced by their composite reliability scores. All factor loadings of the remaining indicators exceeded 0.707. The composite reliability coefficients of all constructs in the proposed conceptual framework were more than adequate, ranging from 0.89 to 0.96 (Table 5). The AVE of each construct was well above the cut-off value of 0.50. Therefore, all three conditions for convergent validity were completely met. In order to show discriminant validity, the square root of the AVE of each construct has to be larger than its correlation with other factors. Discriminant validity can be assured when: (1) indicators load more strongly on their corresponding construct than on other constructs in the model and (2) the square root of the AVE is larger than the inter-construct correlations. The PLS method was applied again to evaluate the discriminant validity of the

Table 4 Descriptive statistics and factor loadings of constructs. Construct

Data used

Sub-construct

Scale item

Factor loading

AVE

CIO role performance

TMTs

IT management capability

CIOs

IT competency

Average (CIOs, TMTs)

Business visionary Business system thinker Value configurer Entrepreneur Infrastructure builder Organizational designer Relationship builder Informed buyer Governance and organization Managing technology investments Strategy and planning Strategic enterprise architecture IT infrastructures Business applications Business–technology integration Business domain knowledge Interpersonal skills Business management practices

BV1–4 BST1–3 VC1–4 EN1–3 ITB1–4 OD1–3 RB1–4 IB1–4 GO1–7 MTI1–5 SP1–6 SEA1–7 ITI1–6 BA1–4 BTI1–5 BDK1–5 IP1–5 BMP1–5

0.803–0.876 0.806–0.881 0.807–0.857 0.895–0.924 0.838–0.881 0.860–0.886 0.863–0.884 0.893–0.923 0.794–0.892 0.826–0.883 0.66(SP5)–0.862 0.825–0.877 0.829–0.925 0.882–0.899 0.860–0.937 0.844–0.915 0.834–0.925 0.815–0.890

0.71 0.73 0.71 0.84 0.75 0.76 0.77 0.82 0.74 0.74 0.66 0.72 0.80 0.79 0.81 0.79 0.78 0.74

Management competency

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Table 5 Inter-correlations among research variables and reliability coefficients. Research variables 1. Business visionary 2. Business system thinker 3. Value configurer 4. Entrepreneur 5. Infrastructure builder 6. Organizational designer 7. Relationship builder 8. Informed buyer 9. Governance and organization 10. Managing technology investments 11. Strategy and planning 12. Strategic enterprise architecture 13. IT infrastructure 14. Business applications 15. Business–technology integration 16. Business domain knowledge 17. Interpersonal skills 18. Business management practices Composite reliability *

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

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15

16

17

18

0.86 0.82 0.81 0.80 0.76 0.72 0.66 0.46 0.33 0.31 0.41 0.69 0.68 0.68 0.66 0.68 0.64 0.89

0.84 0.80 0.75 0.74 0.71 0.67 0.45 0.39 0.34 0.44 0.67 0.67 0.64 0.63 0.64 0.63 0.91

0.91 0.78 0.75 0.69 0.69 0.44 0.36 0.34 0.45 0.63 0.66 0.64 0.62 0.66 0.62 0.94

0.87 0.81 0.79 0.75 0.43 0.35 0.28 0.37 0.70 0.69 0.67 0.61 0.66 0.63 0.93

0.87 0.81 0.73 0.48 0.37 0.30 0.38 0.65 0.66 0.63 0.62 0.66 0.65 0.91

0.87 0.75 0.49 0.40 0.34 0.43 0.65 0.67 0.65 0.69 0.71 0.68 0.93

0.91 0.48 0.35 0.31 0.42 0.65 0.61 0.58 0.59 0.63 0.61 0.95

0.86 0.77 0.73 0.77 0.66 0.65 0.65 0.68 0.64 0.60 0.95

0.86 0.76 0.77 0.52 0.56 0.53 0.54 0.53 0.50 0.94

0.85 0.81 0.46 0.49 0.48 0.54 0.52 0.48 0.93

0.85 0.55 0.57 0.56 0.56 0.56 0.51 0.95

0.89 0.86 0.85 0.75 0.74 0.70 0.96

0.89 0.86 0.71 0.74 0.71 0.94

0.90 0.75 0.78 0.73 0.96

0.89 0.83 0.82 0.95

0.88 0.84 0.95

0.86 0.94

*

0.84 0.80 0.78 0.69 0.69 0.71 0.73 0.59 0.49 0.33 0.27 0.39 0.65 0.62 0.64 0.63 0.64 0.60 0.91

Diagonal elements are the square roots of AVE; all correlations of 0.28 or more are significant at p < 0.01.

major constructs of the conceptual framework. As the results show in Tables 4 and 5, all constructs met this requirement. Finally, the values for reliability are all above the suggested minimum of 0.7. Similarly, all constructs display adequate reliability and discriminant validity. Thus, the convergent and discriminant validity of all constructs in the proposed conceptual framework could be assured. 4.2. Hypothesis testing As we had both formative (e.g., IT and management competencies) and reflective (e.g., IT management activity effectiveness and CIO role performance) second-order constructs in the conceptual model, the structural model was also validated by the PLS technique. In PLS structural model analysis, loadings of the measures of each construct can be interpreted as loadings in a principal component factor analysis. Path coefficients can be interpreted as standardized beta weights in a regression analysis. PLS is also recommended for small sample size models, like we have in this study. In view of the fact that the PLS technique does not generate an overall goodness of fit index like other covariance-based SEM analysis approaches (e.g., LISREL), the validity could be assessed by examining the R2 values and the structural path. A bootstrapping approach was used to generate 250 random samples of observations from the original data set (each sample was the same size as the original data set used for hypothesis testing). The path coefficients were then re-estimated using each one of these random samples of observations. As the next step, this vector of parameter estimates was used to compute the parameter means and standard errors. Finally, the approach was replicated with 500 random samples of observations with replacement, in order to assess the stability of the significance of the path coefficients. The complete results of the PLS analysis for the research model are shown in Fig. 4. The significant path coefficients, effect size, and values of R2 all provided support for the proposed framework. The paths linking IT management activity effectiveness to CIO role performance represent the total impact of the antecedents (i.e., IT and management competencies) and the construct of IT management activity effectiveness on CIO role performance. The results provide strong empirical evidence for the nomological validity of all latent constructs, and the effects on CIO role performance. The estimate of 24.6% for the construct of CIO role performance (R2 = 0.246) and the significant path coefficient (0.50, p < 0.01)

drawn from IT management activity to effectiveness of CIO role performance both provide good support for the hypothesized impact of IT management capability on the dependent variable, CIO role performance. For the intrinsic part of the framework of IT management capability, the IT and management competency constructs together explain 47.5% of the total variance of IT management activity effectiveness. The R2 value of 0.475 demonstrates that the two competencies explain most of the variance in IT management activity effectiveness. Both of the causal paths drawn from IT and management competencies to IT management activity effectiveness were significant, with values of 0.35 (p < 0.05) and 0.38 (p < 0.01), respectively. Thus, the PLS analysis results firmly confirm the influence of IT and management competencies on IT management activity effectiveness, within the framework of IT management capability. An F test was further applied to test the significance of the effect size of the overall model. Both of the dependent variables (IT management activity effectiveness and CIO role performance) were significant (p < 0.01). Therefore, as a whole, the model had strong explanatory power for the constructs of CIO role performance and IT management capability. The significant path coefficients, effect size, and values of R2 reinforce our confidence in the results of hypotheses testing, and provided support for the framework of IT management capability and its impact on role performance. The results of the PLS analysis provide support for two of the hypotheses, H2 and H3. The causal relationships drawn from the IT and management competencies to the IT management activity effectiveness construct were supported by the significant path coefficients. That is, the two critical competencies evidently did influence the CIOs’ IT management activity effectiveness. On the other hand, hypothesis H1 was also supported by the significant path coefficient which were drawn from the IT management activity effectiveness to CIO role performance. IT management capability again evidently influenced CIO role performance. This suggested that organizations needed to require their senior IT leaders to possess higher levels of skills/knowledge in the two broad domains of competency: IT and management. As a whole, all of the path coefficients were significant, which supported the hypotheses that the causal relationships among the three major constructs of our research model were indeed above the minimum standard of 0.20 required in order to be considered meaningful. The research model has strong explanatory power for the constructs of IT and management competencies, IT management

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Fig. 4. PLS analysis results.

activity effectiveness, and CIO role performance. The results of the hypothesis testing provided support for the nomological network of the model. 5. Discussion We proposed a framework of IT management capability and developed a comprehensive model, based on ACM, empowerment theory, and role-based performance theory, for examining the causal relationships between IT and management competencies, IT management activity effectiveness, and CIO role performance, This model was validated through a rigorous PLS analysis. The nomological structure of IT management capability, encompassing IT competency, management competency, and IT management activity, was validated by the empirical data. All the components of IT management capability are found to contribute to CIO role performance. Specifically, the testing results indicated that CIOs’ superior IT and management competencies positively associated with IT management effectiveness. Furthermore, a higher level of IT management effectiveness also directly affected the CIO’s role performance. All of the six broad domains of skills/knowledge (IT infrastructure, business applications, and business–technology integration of IT competency, business domain knowledge, interpersonal, and business management practices of management competency) significantly affected IT management activity effectiveness and CIO role performance. CIOs have a key role to play as catalysts for innovation and enablers of change. Our analysis implies that modern CIOs should not only count on their IT skills/knowledge but also equip themselves with specific business management competency. Hence, modern CIOs should equip themselves with adequate IT proficiency in recognizing potential ways to exploit new business opportunities using IT infrastructure, analyze organizational problems in order to identify business applications, and evaluate the way emerging IS/IT contributes to the value co-creation of IT– business integration. In addition, today’s CIOs need interpersonal skills, in order to converge help initiate IT-based business innovation. 6. Research contributions and implications First, our empirical validation of eight CIO roles and assessment of CIO role performance is significant. Applying the role-based performance theory, we have provided a systematic approach to

assessing CIO role performance. Furthermore, the results indicate that IT and management competencies have significant impact on CIO role performance through the achievement of IT management activity effectiveness. Those confirmed the truth of our framework and supported the concepts of ACM. The findings have several implications for practice. It provided support for the prescriptive writings, anecdotal narratives, and prior empirical research suggesting that the most effective CIOs should have a good command of IT infrastructure, business applications and business–technology integration skill/knowledge as well as have organization-wide domain knowledge, know how to communicate effectively, and possess superior skills/ knowledge of business management on order to catalyze and initiate IT-based organizational innovation and change. While organizations continuously invest, adopt, and assimilate new business applications, not all of their efforts thrive. Firms may blunder by both under- or over-investing in IT assets, adopting IT applications that do not contribute to sustainable strategic advantage, assimilating the right business initiatives but with poor timing may simply fail in implementing potential business applications [5]. Thus today’s CIOs must possess sound skills to allow them to make the right decisions about appropriate IT and business investments, matching new market opportunities with technology, and support innovation for growth. In done successfully, the CIO can help a firm to assimilate the rapid pace of innovation in IT initiatives to the emerging information technology management practices. The growing complexities of IT infrastructures and innovative web-based business applications have begun to place a premium on the knowledge of information technology. Our results suggest that firms need CIOs who can successfully implement IT management practices with superior levels of IT and management skills to fulfill their salient roles. 7. Conclusion and limitations Drawing upon prior theory and existing literature, we proposed a framework of IT management capability and empirically examined its impacts on CIO role performance in firms. By considering the performance of CIO roles and the necessity of IT management capability, the nomological and predictive validities of the major constructs of IT management capability on CIOs’ levels of role performance were assessed. Our findings added to the body of knowledge by assessing the human-resource based capability of IT management required by CIOs and the impacts of them on the

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CIO’s role performance and on the effectiveness of IT management activities. Although our study provided interesting insights, it has several limitations. First, it was validated using sample data from Taiwan and China, which may limit the applicability of its results to other systems or countries. Second, the proposed framework of IT management capability is still in its infancy and its implications are limited. Test–retest reliability should be further evaluated to examine the research model’s stability. Third, since the variables in our model only explained 24.6% of the variance in CIO role performance, significant antecedents other than IT management capability are probably contributing to the process. Finally, our subjects were those who voluntarily reported their experience. There may thus be sample selection bias.

We hope that our paper can provide a methodical way that will be useful to contemporary organizations in shifting from a somewhat fragmented and incomplete competency development process to one that is systematic and complete. Our study suggested that enterprises can improve CIO role performance by increasing the CIO’s level of IT management capability. Acknowledgments This research was supported by the National Science Council of Taiwan, under operating grants of NSC 96-2416-H-110-009-MY3 and NSC 97-2511-S-276-006-MY3. It was also partially supported by the Aim for the Top University Plan of National Sun Yat-Sen University and the Ministry of Education, Taiwan.

Appendix A. Survey instrument used in this study CIO questionnaire (I) IT management activity effectiveness Please assess your level of effectiveness in performing the following IT management activities: (5: Extremely effective; 4: Effective; 3: Neutral; 2 Not effective; 1: Not effective at all) 1. Governance and organization GO1: to establish what decisions must be made, the people responsible for achieving them. GO2: to establish the process used to make the decisions of a full range of IT governance investment decisions, standards and principles, as well as target business and technology architectures. to establish the makeup of work groups, defining and populating levels, roles, and reporting relationships GO3: to enable technology-based business initiatives. to support structuring and administering organizational and individual incentives as well as designing GO4: programs to foster quick and effective adoption of change. to facilitate the management of communications associated with large-scale change programs and GO5: business–technology synchronization. to establish overall strategy and tactics for creating broad-based understanding and getting actionable GO6: information throughout the organization. to ensure that government and regulatory requirements are understood and met with regard to information GO7: technology initiatives and that appropriate risk mitigation strategies are in place. 2. Managing technology investments MTI1: to monitor program and execution of investments in existing IT assets and projects. MTI2: to develop enterprise project and asset portfolios. MTI3: to prioritize technology investments. MTI4: to leverage re-usable IT assets. MTI5: to balance information technology demand and resource requirements. 3. Strategy and planning SP1: to articulate the technology plans to enable required business capabilities. SP2: to define principles to guide decisions on target applications and infrastructure. SP3: to define principles to support plans for moving from as-is to target architectures. SP4: to define and link plans and budgets to strategy and enterprise architecture. SP5: to identify areas of strategic opportunity for outsourcing, co-development, and vendor selection. SP6: to integrate accumulated or acquired IT units and assets to ensure consistency with an organization’s strategy. 4. Strategic enterprise architecture SEA1: to describe business strategies in terms actionable information technology. SEA2: to describe operating models in terms actionable information technology. SEA3: to define the applications and technical infrastructure required to meet enterprise goals and objectives. SEA4: to define standard information technology applications, tools, and vendors for the delivery of enterprise architecture guiding principles. to establish and manage portfolios of applications to be in consistent with IT strategy. SEA5: SEA6: to achieve target architectures and maintain standards. SEA7: to apply enterprise architecture and standards to simplify the infrastructure to reduce complexity and cost by controlling the number of applications and systems. (II) IT competency Please rate your skill/knowledge level of the following scale items: (5: Very high; 4: High; 3: Fair; 2 Low; Very low) 1. IT infrastructures ITI1: to purchase software to ensure that applications are meeting the needs of the organization. ITI2: to modify and develop proprietary applications to ensure that applications are meeting the needs of the organization. to provide installation and technical support to ensure that applications are meeting the needs of the ITI3: organization. to integrate common data definitions and consistency in different databases have been established across ITI4: a firm’s business applications. to establish standards, policies and rules that govern the use of information technology ITI5: ITI6: to plot a migration path to the way business will be done in the future to cope with both business uncertainty and technological change.

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Appendix A (Continued ) 2. Business applications BA1:

understanding the professional and strategic activities of the information technology group including negotiation, IS planning, project management. recognizing the emerging technologies that allow direct connections or distribution channels to suppliers, BA2: customers, and business partners. identifying and testing new technologies for business purposes BA3: BA4: understanding how to integrate a firm’s physical, financial, and information flows with its business partners. 3. Business–technology integration BTI1: understanding how to recognize potential ways to exploit new business opportunities and markets using IT. BTI2: understanding how to integrate IS and new work flow of the organization. BTI3: understanding how to analyze business problems in order to identify IT-based solutions. understanding how to converge between business goals and information systems goals in the organization BTI4: as a whole. understanding how to realize the way IT contributes to the value of the organization. BTI5: (III) Management competency Please rate your skill/knowledge level of the following scale items: (5: Very high; 4: High; 3: Fair; 2 Low; Very low) 1. Business domain knowledge BDK1: understanding the visions/missions/objectives of the organization as a whole. understanding the core capabilities of the organization as a whole. BDK2: BDK3: understanding the key successful factors of the organization as a whole. BDK4: understanding the work processes and connections between the various divisions in the organization. understanding the overall performance of the organization as a whole. BDK5: 2. Interpersonal skills/knowledge IP1: communicating with people at different levels of the organization (e.g., with the subordinates, peers, superiors). working in a team environment. IP2: IP3: communicating with business peers about IT matters in non-technical language. IP4: sharing responsibilities during the process of developing and executing the project with other staffs in organizations. undertaking the professional risks emerging from the process of introducing innovative IT expertise for IP5: executing the project effectively and efficiently. 3. Business management practices BMP1: acting in a leadership role (e.g., establishing direction, directing people, motivating and inspiring, etc.). BMP2: managing projects (planning, managing resources, evaluating, etc.). BMP3: understanding the existing practices for the management of change in the organization. BMP4: understanding the risk management practices that can be applied in the organization. BMP5: understanding the general business management practices that can be applied in the organization.

TMT-questionnaire Please assess your CIO’s performance level that confirms your expectation on the following items: (5: Outstanding; 4: Well; 3: Fair; 2: Not well; 1: Not meeting expectations at all) (I) CIO role performance BV1: getting involved intimately in shaping the vision, mission and goal of the organization. BV2: getting involved intimately in shaping business strategic planning and decisions. BV3: developing and implementing a strategic IT plan that aligns with the organization’s strategic business plan. BV4: working with executive colleagues to define and implement approval processes appropriate to the business environment. thinking through new business models concerning the issues of cost structures, pricing, and channel conflict. BT1: BT2: introducing new management processes that leverage the information technologies (ITs). BT3: developing an understanding of the business process and direct IT-enabled business process reengineering. VC1: developing/maintaining metrics that reflect the value of IT to the organization. VC2: offering the potential for new and more sophisticated linkages with larger numbers of suppliers, designers, customers, and alliance partners. helping enhance a firm’s value propositions, position in the industry, or to even create or redefine VC3: an industry. developing an understanding of the strategic options and tactical business changes that enable timely value VC4: propositions to the marketplace. identifying new business needs and business opportunities for IT use. EN1: EN2: effectively sensing and quickly incorporating emerging technologies towards competitive agility. EN3: keeping up with market changes and trends that might have an impact on the organizational use of IT. ITB1: scanning emerging technologies to identify existing and future capabilities continuously. ITB2: designing a corporate IT architecture that satisfies corporate-wide computing needs. ITB3: persuading IT and business management of the necessity of adopting consequent technical standards. ITB4: migrating organization from legacy, departmental applications to cross-departmental, integrated applications. clearly delineating responsibilities between central and distributed IT units. OD1: OD2: managing a broad and dynamic array of coordinating mechanisms throughout the organization. OD3: recruiting and developing the professional staff that was both technically proficient and business oriented. RB1: communicating and interacting often with non-IT managers throughout the organization. RB2: investing in relationship building with business executives continuously. RB3: establishing and maintaining an IT department that is responsive to user requests/problems. RB4: facilitating the wider dialogue, establishing understanding, trust, and cooperation among business users and IT specialists. analyzing how IT activity could be successfully disaggregated and appropriately contracted. IB1: IB2: monitoring the services provided against both the contractual requirements and the developing capability of the marketplace. ensuring IT contracts with external vendors remaining within scope and budget. IB3: IB4: negotiating with vendor IT organizations on new external contract proposals.

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Appendix A (Continued ) (II) IT competency Please rate your CIO’s skill/knowledge level of the following scale items: (5: Very high; 4: High; 3: Fair; 2 Low; Very low) 1. IT infrastructures scale items are the same with CIO questionnaire. *ITI1–ITI6: 2. Business applications **BA1–BA4: scale items are the same with CIO questionnaire. 3. Business–technology integration ***BTI1–BTI5: scale items are the same with CIO questionnaire. (III) Management competency Please rate your CIO’s skill/knowledge level of the following scale items: (5: Very high; 4: High; 3: Fair; 2 Low; Very low) 1. Business domain knowledge *BDK1–BDK5: scale items are the same with CIO questionnaire. 2. Interpersonal skills/knowledge **IP1–IP5: scale items are the same with CIO questionnaire. 3. Business management practices ***BMP1–BMP5: scale items are the same with CIO questionnaire.

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[19] P. Weill, M. Subramani, M. Broadbent, Building IT infrastructure for strategic agility, Sloan Management Review 44 (1), 2002, pp. 57–65. [20] P. Weill, M. Vitale, What IT infrastructure capabilities are needed to implement ebusiness models? MIS Quarterly Executive 1 (1), 2002, pp. 17–34. [21] B.C. Wheeler, NEBIC: a dynamic capabilities theory for assessing net-enablement, Information Systems Research 13 (2), 2002, pp. 125–146. [22] L.P. Willcocks, D. Feeny, IT outsourcing and core IS capabilities: challenges and lessons at Dupont, Information Systems Management 23 (1), 2006, pp. 49–56. [23] L.P. Willcocks, D. Feeny, N. Olson, Implementing core IS capabilities: Feeny– Willcocks IT governance and management framework revisited, European Management Journal 24 (1), 2006, pp. 28–37. [24] L. Willcocks, P. Reynolds, D. Feeny, Evolving IS capabilities to leverage the external IT services market, MIS Quarterly Executive 6 (3), 2007, pp. 127–145. [25] J.H. Wu, Y.C. Chen, H.H. Lin, Developing a set of management needs for is managers: a study of necessary management activities and skills, Information & Management 41 (4), 2004, pp. 413–429. Yi-Cheng Chen is an assistant professor in the Faculty of Information Science & Management Systems at National Taitung University, Taitung, Taiwan. He earned his PhD degree in information management at National Sun Yat-Sen University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan. He has previously worked as a R&D engineer in the IC lead-frame manufacturing industry in Taiwan. He has published several papers in some professional IS/IT journals such as Information & Management, Computers in Human Behavior, International Journal of Medical Informatics and others. His current research interests include IS/IT assimilation, technology human resource management, competency development, ehealthcare innovation, and e-learning strategy. Jen-Her Wu is a professor of information management at National Sun Yat-Sen University. Prior to his doctoral study at the University of Kentucky, he received a BS degree in industrial design, earned an MS degree in computer science and worked as an engineer and manager in the manufacturing industry. He teaches a variety of information management courses. He has published four books and more than 60 papers in professional journals such as Information & Management, Computers in Human Behavior, Decision Support Systems, and others. He also serves as an associate editor of Computers in Human Behavior and on the editorial board of Information & Management. His current research interests include information systems development and management, electronic commerce and innovation, and knowledge management.