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The growing pervasiveness of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), over the past few decades, and their gradual but widespread assimilation and integration in the fabric of most organizations has made these organizations heavily dependent on these technologies not only for their daily business routines, but also for their competitive survival. Moreover, the continuous developments in these technologies, such as big data and pervasive analytics, context aware computing, smart machines and devices, cloud computing and the Internet of Things (IoT), have all rendered IT a strategic resource and competitive imperative for all but the smallest business organizations. Likewise, these continuing advancements in IT capabilities have engendered an increasing pressure on the IT/IS function to deliver more significant results, and a corresponding demand on the IT/IS leadership to translate IT investments into competitive advantage (Joia and Correia, 2018; Klee et al., 2021; Babin and Grant, 2019; Chen et al., 2010; Saldanha and Krishnan, 2011; Grant and Yeo, 2019; Strickland and Theodoulidis, 2019).
The contemporary executive IT/IS leader is the chief information officer (CIO) whose role, historically, has evolved in tandem with the remarkable evolution of information technology (IT) (Bouaynaya 2020, Ross and Feeny, 1999; Strickland and Theodoulidis, 2019), reflecting a seemingly symbiotic relationship between them. This continuous IT revolution and globalization have now been generally recognized in the literature as the underlying cause of the evolutionary change in the roles and responsibilities of the chief information officer (CIO) (Barens et al., 2021; Adams and Weiss 2011; Hodgson and Lane 2010; Weiss and Adams 2010). That evolution has, partially at least, led to a confusion in the nature of the role of the CIO, rendering it somewhat ambiguous and largely ill-defined (Gerth and Peppard 2016, 2020; Hunter 2010; Peppard et al., 2011; Peppard 2010). Consequently, numerous CIO roles have been suggested in the information systems (IS) research literature over the past few years (George and Howard 2020; Chen et al., 2010; Smaltz et al., 2006). Indeed, much of the contemporary IS research has largely focused on the evolving roles of the CIO and their personal attributes and competencies (Peppard, 2010; Peppard et al., 2011), with undue emphasis being placed on the individual per se, prompting some researchers to suggest that “perhaps research has been progressing down the wrong path” (Peppard, 2010, p.75). More research is thus needed to shift the focus and direct enquiry into the innumerable factors and contextual variables theorized to bear on the IT/IS function in general, and its executive leader (i.e. CIO) in particular. This is echoed by Ghawe and Gonzalez (2019) who called upon IS scholars to investigate more contextual factors that might influence the IT leaders’ behavior and effectiveness.