Information systems leadership

Author

Karahanna, Elena ; Watson, Richard Thomas

Author_Institution

Georgia Univ., Athens, GA, USA

Volume

53

Issue

2

fYear

2006

fDate

5/1/2006 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

171

Lastpage

176

Abstract

Information system (IS) leadership is a critical area for many organizations because of their increasing dependence on ISs both for operational stability and for enablement of process innovation and business strategy. IS Leadership is distinctive from leadership in general because the Chief Information Officer (CIO) is expected to combine IS technical skills with an in-depth understanding of the organization across all functions from operational to strategic. Thus, unique leadership challenges arise due to the technology/business interface. The breadth of the IS Leadership role implies that IS Leadership research needs to cover a wide range of topics concerning the role and characteristics of the CIO, the CIO´s interface with the top management team, and the CIO´s organizational impact. This essay discusses the distinctive aspects of IS Leadership, identifies the dominant themes in prior IS Leadership research,and introduces five papers on IS Leadership in this issue.

Keywords

decision making; information systems; technology management; business strategy; chief information officer; corporate leadership; decision-making; information system leadership; process innovation strategy; technology management strategy; technology-business interface; top management team; Business communication; Computer architecture; Information systems; Open source software; Outsourcing; Service oriented architecture; Stability; Technological innovation; Technology management; Web services; Corporate leadership; TMT decision-making; development of technology management strategies; global issues in technology management; leadership; strategic issues in technology management; top management team (TMT) composition and dynamics;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Engineering Management, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9391

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TEM.2006.872247

Filename

1624425