Antecedents and Effects of CIO Supply-Side and Demand-Side Leadership: A Staged Maturity Model

Abstract

As organizations' information technology (IT) investment goals evolve from improving operational efficiency to enhancing strategic growth, the chief information officer (CIO) is increasingly expected to play not only the traditional supply-side leadership role that focuses on exploiting existing IT competencies to support known business needs but also the demand-side leadership role that focuses on exploring new IT-enabled business opportunities that result in competitive advantage. Using matched CIO business executive responses from 174 firms, we test a staged maturity relationship between CIO supply-side and demand-side leadership and examine three antecedents (CIO human capital, CIO structural power, and organizational support for IT) and two effects (IT contribution to firm efficiency and strategic growth) of CIO leadership. The staged maturity model is supported by our findings and provides insight into how these two stages of CIO leadership influence IT impact within the organization and how they are influenced by these key antecedents.

Keywords:

• chief information officer
• exploitation
• exploration
• IT functional impact
• IT leadership
• staged maturity model
• strategic value of IT
• structural equation modeling
• survey research