Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
all NYSFIRM member agencies.
All 54 institutional representatives were telephoned in order to identify the name and
address of the chief information officer — head of the information resource management
(IRM) function — within their agency. Because the CIO title is not widely used in New York
State government agencies, the highest ranking information resource manager within the
agency was treated as the agency's CIO. The “chief information officer” title is broadly
applied to all members of the sample, regardless of the actual title used within their given
agencies. The appropriate names and addresses were obtained for 54 chief information
officers (CIO) employed within New York State government agencies from the original contact
list.
Respondents
Forty-one useable CIO questionnaires were returned for an overall response rate of
76%. Thirty-six of the respondents were male, and five were female. The most commonly
reported titles were “director” and “assistant director.” In fact, only one of the 41 respondents
actually held the “CIO” title. These data are consistent with previous research surrounding
IT management in the public sector (Penrod et al., 1990).
There are undoubtedly an infinite number of contextual factors that may affect the
appropriate role and, hence, the critical competencies for the CIO. Two factors related to the
CIO's work environment were examined and are presented here in order to identify which of
the factors and activities comprising the six dimensions, different CIO groups deem critical
from the six sets identified through the semistructured interview data.
Measurement of CIO Competence
Measurement of CIO competence is based on the respondents' assessment of the
importance of the six dimensions of CIO competence. The first three dimensions represent
three knowledge bases integral to the CIO job. The attributes that comprise the three
knowledge-based dimensions are called “factors”:
•
Business factors dimension
•
Human factors dimension
•
Technical factors dimension
The last three dimensions represent three sets of activities that are vital to the CIO job.
The attributes that comprise the three activity-based dimensions are called “activities”:
•
Convey the relevance of IT activities dimension
•
Management critical relationships activities dimension
•
Implement IT-based solutions activities dimension
In assessing the importance of the factors that comprise each knowledge-based
dimension, respondents used a 10-point Likert-type scale to “indicate the extent to which the
following 'factors' are critical for you to absolutely be cognizant of and focused on” (CA =
cannot assess, 1 = not important, 10 = critical). Similarly, in assessing the importance of the
activities which comprise each activity-based dimension, respondents used the 10-point
Likert-type scale to “indicate the extent to which the following 'activities' are critical for you
to perform” (CA = cannot assess, 1 = not important, 10 = critical).
