CIO reporting structure and firm strategic orientation – a content analysis approach

Abstract

Purpose

Grounded in the principal-agent theory, this study aims to develop and test hypotheses too, investigate how the firm’s strategic orientations, namely, innovation, growth, differentiation and cost leadership impact the chief information officer (CIO) reporting relationship and structure.

Design/methodology/approach

The study uses content analysis to analyze a data set of press releases collected from the LexisNexis Academic wire index. The press releases were issued by firms when they hired CIOs between 2003 and 2007, yielding 128 firms, which had specific information about the CIO reporting relationship and structure.

Findings

The results reveal that firms seeking an innovation, growth or differentiation strategy have their CIOs reporting to the chief executive officer.

Research limitations/implications

The current study is motivated by the desire to replicate and extend the works of previous researchers who have assessed various CIO issues. Replication takes several forms such as the use of similar or different data sets, different research environments or reinvestigating research concepts through a different theoretical lens. This study makes use of a multi-firm data set spanning five years and the principal-agent theory as the theoretical framework to explore the CIO reporting relationship and structure. Although this study focuses on the hiring trends and the strategic orientations of the firms, future studies should explore other characteristics associated with the CIOs that might have an impact on the reporting relationship such as the years of experience, age, educational background of CIOs and information technology budgets.

Practical implications

The existing literature has not settled the debate as to whom the CIO should be reporting to and understanding the reporting relationships is important because, in many firms, the organizational structures and the reporting relationships are indicative of the power dynamics and how the organizational resources are controlled and shared.

Originality/value

Replication studies are important because they confirm, reinforce, extend and provide reliability to the paradigms and knowledge in the discipline, as well as offer reliability of the results upon which scientific progress is based.

Citation

Karanja, E., Grant, D. and Zaveri, J.S. (2021), "CIO reporting structure and firm strategic orientation – a content analysis approach", Journal of Systems and Information Technology, Vol. 23 No. 1, pp. 20-52. https://doi.org/10.1108/JSIT-02-2020-0022