Event Details

Jostein Engesmo from NTNU, Norway will present a seminar to the Management Science Department

Abstract: The Chief Digital Officer (CDO) has emerged as a leadership role intended to meet the growing demands of initiating and managing digital transformation in organizations (Christofi, 2024). This role has evolved alongside the Chief Information Officer (CIO), who is responsible for ensuring the stable, secure, and cost-effective delivery of digital services while also driving innovation and managing business-side demands (Haffke et al., 2016). Although the creation of new CDO positions has shown signs of decline since 2017 (Péladeau & Acker, 2019), the role remains established and warrants further research (Firk et al., 2021; Christofi, 2024). In particular, there is a need to examine the relationship between the CDO, the CIO, and other members of the top management team. The CIO–CDO relationship is frequently characterized by friction (Lorenz & Buchwald, 2023), and the legitimacy of the CDO role is often challenged. This raises questions about the long-term sustainability of the role and whether it may eventually be merged into other executive positions. Some authors have suggested the need for a reintegration into a multi-functional CDO role (Christofi, 2024) or a combined Chief Digital and Information Officer (CDIO) role (Lorenz & Buchwald, 2023), a development also observed in some of our interviews. Drawing on interviews conducted with CIOs and CDOs in 2019 (Engesmo & Panteli, 2021), and complemented by follow-up and new interviews with digital leaders between 2021 and 2025, this study explores the evolution of the CDO role and, specifically, its relationship with the CIO. We also examine how these dynamics shape digital transformation programmes.

References:

Christofi, M. (2024). The role of chief digital officer: Critical insights into an emerging field and road map for future research. Journal of Business Research, 172, 114390. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2023.114390

Engesmo, J. & Panteli, N. (2021). Digital leaders and the transformation of the IT function. Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems, 33(1). https://aisel.aisnet.org/sjis/vol33/iss1/4

Firk, S., Hanelt, A., Oehmichen, J. & Wolff, M. (2021). Chief Digital Officers: An Analysis of the Presence of a Centralized Digital Transformation Role. Journal of Management Studies, 58(7), 1800–1831. https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12718

Haffke, I., Benlian, A. & Kalgovas, B. (2016). The Role of the CIO and the CDO in an Organization’s Digital T ransformation. Thirty Seventh International Conference on Information Systems.

Lorenz, F. & Buchwald, A. (2023). A perfect match or an arranged marriage? How chief digital officers and chief information officers perceive their relationship: a dyadic research design. European Journal of Information Systems, 32(3), 372–389. https://doi.org/10.1080/0960085x.2023.2178742

Péladeau, P. & Acker, O. (2019). Have we reached “peak” chief digital officer. Strategy+business.