Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
officers report to the CIO” (Newcombe, 1999, p. 12). The lack of the CIO position within public-
sector agencies, until relatively recently, may stem from chief decision makers who are
uninformed as to what the CIO position is about. Flynn expounded on his situation by saying
he “…had to explain to [his state's] Gov. William Weld what the [CIO] title meant”
(Newcombe, 1999, p. 12).
Determining the appropriate roles of IT and the CIO has become critical to organizational
success and dictates serious consideration to the development of interdisciplinary curricula
for training the next generation of IT managers. Admittedly, research in this area is difficult
due to the constant influx of IT innovations, as well as changes in organizational strategies
and management objectives. The
appropriate
approach to managing information resources
continues to evolve. Some approaches that have proved effective in the past often hold little
relevance in present and future situations.
The approach here is to elucidate that which is relatively static in a domain that is
increasingly dynamic. Specifically, a conceptual framework of CIO competence comprised
of dimensions of the role that will likely endure over time is developed. Again, CIO competence
is viewed broadly in terms of what CIOs need to know and what activities CIOs need to engage
in.
In large part, the conceptual framework is based on data collected through exploratory
in-depth interviews and semistructured interviews with public-sector CIOs. All interviewees
worked within New York State government agencies and were the individuals foremost
responsible for management of their agencies' information resources.
A noteworthy aspect of the interviews and the development of the conceptual
framework is that they follow the admonishment of Graham T. Allison in his
Lessons for
Research in Public Management
(Allison, 1980). The following lists one of Allison's lessons
that was applied here:
The effort to develop public management as a field of knowledge should start from
problems faced by practicing public managers.
Exploratory In-Depth Interviews
The exploratory in-depth interview data were examined to determine the key problems
facing public-sector CIOs and to discern the requisite dimensions of the conceptual
framework of CIO competence. The semistructured interview data were used to define the six
dimensions of the conceptual framework of CIO competence that emerged from the explor-
atory interview data. The definitions are comprised of sets of attributes that the interviewees
associated with each dimension. These data resulted in a six-dimensional preliminary
conceptual framework of competence in the CIO role (Figure 1). To this end, the following
questions were of primary interest:
1.
What are the dimensions of CIO competence?
2.
What are the defining attributes of these dimensions?
Four exploratory in-depth interviews were conducted with New York State government
agency CIOs. All of the interviews were conducted in person by the same interviewer and
lasted from one to one and one-half hours in duration. The purpose of the interviews was to
gain a richer understanding of the public-sector domain in which NYS government agency
CIOs operate and the common problems they deal with. Specifically, six major areas of the
CIO's work environment were explored:
